Media Asia

ISSN: 0129-6612 (Print) 2377-6277 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmea20

Development journalism – a new dimension in the

information process

Alan Chalkley

To cite this article: Alan Chalkley (1980) Development journalism – a new dimension in the
information process, Media Asia, 7:4, 215-217, DOI: 10.1080/01296612.1980.11726018

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.1980.11726018

Published online: 23 May 2016.

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 Development journalism- a new
dimension in the information process

Catch phrases usually have a limited life-time, but Development

Journalism seems to be enjoying an unusual spate of
popularity. But like most other catch phrases, people appear to
be more keen to talk of them than to put into practice. Alan
Chalkley, famed for his "A Manual of Development
Journalism", gives some very useful tips on how development
journalism can be put into practice.

Alan Chalkley

ANY people can claim to have invented the phrase and human, and tell the incredible development story
M "Development Journalism", but it seemed to
solidify somewhere about 1968, to describe not a new
that was about to break on to the world scene.

kind of journalism at all — but a new attitude towards
the treatment of certain subjects. The need for more of
this Development Journalism had become quite clear in
the post-1945 years, with the growing number of
independent economies in the world, the sharp rise in
sophistication and modernisation among them — and,
most of all, the soaring aspirations of the people.
And it has been an incredible story, especially here in
Asia. Among the 30 nations which made up this region,
many have had great difficulties lifting themselves up
into better standards of living, and still have those diffi-
culties. But there are some countries in the region which
have accomplished massive feats of economic growth,
social change and the building of new capital equipment.

Newspapers in most of the poorer countries, up to
1945, were addressed chiefly to the economic and
administrative elites, in any language. Sometimes even
the language was elite — take the case of a newspaper
right here in Colombo, which until the 1950s was
written in a form of Sinhalese which was more hieratic
than demotic. Among the truly demotic papers, there
were many small weeklies and underground sheets, but
these either devoted themselves to politics (and far from
disinterested politics at that) — or to gossip, scandal,
pornography and the entertainment trade.
Somewhere, some time, there had to be a compro-
mise, a new way of expressing news and analysis which
would reach down further into the readership, be
brighter, be rigorously honest and accurate, be pictorial
Alan Chalkley is with the Press Foundation for Asia. This paper
was presented at the Seminar on Development Journalism in
Colombo, June 1980.
What Herman Kahn has called the "four tigers" —
South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, for
instance — have reached and maintained rates of growth
which previously had only been reached by Japan, in its
miracle years of the 1960s and early 1970s. These coun-
tries, along with their ASEAN neighbours, are now the
prime growth rim on the western Pacific, unique in the
world.
But merely giving development journalism a name
was scarcely enough. Indeed, some people to this day
suspect the phrase. They think that all it means is the
efficient distribution of government hand-outs on a good
mailing list. No, development journalism doesn't mean
any particular institution — it means the whole commu-
nication process. It means new attitudes on the part of
governments, the press, radio and TV, the international
institutions (and oh boy — do they need new attitudes!),
and the many sources of news and analysis from the
private sector — banks, companies in all economic fields,
private research organisations, the lot.

MEDIA ASIA, 1980 Page 215

 Anyway, to get back to its beginnings, we conceived
one or two axioms which we would try to follow, to
make development journalism readable, interesting,
colourful, informative (and, maybe, at the margin, in-
fluential, but this is not at all a main aim).
These axioms are quite simple:
1. Simplify, translate horrible technical jargon into
language which is more like ordinary speech. Use
plenty of colourful phrases, swing the copy along to
keep the reader's interest up; but do not lose accu-
racy. This is one of the biggest challenges to the deve-
lopment journalist.
2. Humanise the economic and social story. Remember
that economies is not the prerogative of bankers and
high Treasury officials, or the people who draft those
awful reports in the United Nations. Economics is
trying to earn a living, by everyone, including house-
wives.
3. Illustrate stories more, use pictures and charts. One
diagram is worth a thousand words. (Here I must
interpose that the electronic media have not yet
solved the development journalism problem — the
number of programmes which are bright expositions
of economic and social development are very few.
Producers tend to shy away from the subject, like
they also tend to shy away from showing musical
performances on TV).
4. In addition to changing the manner in which the
development story is told, we tried to make clear that
the matter had to change, too. Spot news events are
okay, of course — they inform, and to some people
they mean events of great importance. "The Dow
Jones index firmed on technical adjustments, and
then declined with profit-taking" —take that phrasing.
To a broker, a big investor, it reads like Keats 'Ode to
a Grecian Urn.' To most of us, it makes our eyes glaze
over.
But somewhere under the phrasing is a story — there
is past history and future hope. There is a process at
work. And it is process that is the name of the game in
development journalism. How does the uptick in the
Dow Jones affect, and how is it affected by, all other
events within its ambit? What does it mean to the paddy-
farmer in darkest Saburagamuwa, the shopkeeper in the
islands of the Visayas, the rubber-tapper in J chore?
What is the cat's cradle of events acting on the Dow,
and what is the logic — and even what are the illogicali-
ties — of the conjecture at this moment of time?
Correction: What the hell is going on?
Maybe only forty years ago, none of these little peo-
ple knew or cared very much about such things as Dow
indexes. But believe me, they do now! Thanks to the
very communications which we have built into the
world system, he can now have this material piped into
his transistor, into his raggedly weekly newspaper, into
his magazines and through the gossip trackways. The
world is becoming pretty numerate these days, as well
as literate.
Page 216
So this is what a gang of us — the Manila Mafia —
tried to push over. And with us were many other
communicators, from many countries who thought it
was a very good idea. We held courses and meetings,
often on a shoestring, seminars, conferences. Most of
them were not big ones. In fact, we preferred to make
small gatherings, like the provincial correspondents |of a
national news agency; we met wire agency people; we
met publishers.
Now, for the bottom line. Has it worked? Well, I
have to leave you to judge that; I'm still too close to the
process itself and too committed. But I will point out
one or two trends in the years since about 1968.
l.The old "city page" has given way to "business
pages" in newspaper after newspaper in this region.
To name a few — the Hindustan Standard,1 the
Straits Times of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, the
South China Morning Post and the Hongkong Stan-
dard of Hong Kong, the Bangkok Post.
The old city page used to have those horribly jargonic
intros to the stock markets, the commodity markets,
and some dull hand-outs from the economic depart-
ments of the government; a company result or two;
eye-glazing tables of figures. For the ordinary reader,
it Was strictly a no-no — turn to the sports pages ...
2. The wire services are running far more economic news
than they did. Far, far more — look at the files. I was
down in Australia recently, meeting foreign news
desk people — and one of them, believe it or not, was
still saying: "Stories about textiles are dull; how can
you sell an economic story?" j
My goodness, I blew up! And it took a lot of courage
for a bloody Pom like me, an Englishman, to cross
swords with an Australian . . . But I did point out
that, say the word "textiles", and you conjure up the
most hard-fought battle across national boundaries,
quotas, curbs, protectionism, politics, and a whole
stack of social parameters. Textiles are the biggest
can of worms on the economic circuit, and have been
for about thirty years.
So the only conclusion you can come to, if news
editors think that "textiles are dull", is that the sto-
ries are just not being written well enough. Journa-
lists are not au courant with the facts, and they don't
see the conflict, the tragedy, the harshness, the skull-
duggery, the social trends which are summed up in a
simple news story which runs something like this:
"The Customs and Excise Department yesterday
brought into operation Clause 17b of the amended
tariff on garments of wool, cotton and fibres either
natural or non-natural, knotted or felted together
with goo..." i
Give that story to a true development journalist, and
he will curl your hair with the background to it, and
the current trends, and the future outlook. Did you
read recently about the textile agreement between
U.S. and Peking, the unilateral extension? Work that
one out, on a geopolitical basis... j
MEDIA ASIA, 1980
3. I think that world trade is expanding and diversifying
— which it is, marvellously — partly because there is
more readable business news about. There is more
readable socio-economic news, too; little manufac-
turers and merchants are eager to read how consu-
mers (correction: ordinary people) how ordinary
people are living and spending their hard-earned
dough in the Ivory Coast and Chile and Sulawesi. It
might mean business. It might mean pointers to social
and economic trends which change societies.
4. I think, too, that there is better confidence between
some governments, and some corporations, and the
new journalist. It was not so long ago that one insti-
tution, in the Philippines, said it would not issue any
press releases, nor talk with the press. Reason? "They
always get the facts wrong, damn it!"
Solution: We persuaded them that, in that case, they
had better meet the press more, not less. Tell us about
it, explain it to us, make reasonable professionals out of
us; then we'll tell the people.
It worked, by the way. The institution was the Inter-
national Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, and the
big, big story was the 'Miracle Rice' (a phrase coined by
one of those unreliable journalists, which has now gone
round the world).
But there are still glitches and challenges facing the
hard-working development journalist. There are barriers,
of knowledge and confidence, which he can erode only
Basskaran Nair
MEDIA ASIA, 1980
by becoming more and more skilled, more and more
experienced and knowledgeable, more and more trained
and refreshed.
There are cost problems. It would be great to produce
lovely pictorial TV programmes, lovely sound-tapes on
development processes, taken live and on the spot, love-
ly illustrated development stories in the newspapers and
the magazines. But alas, it costs money. You have to
send journalists and engineers and cameramen and
video-operators out to benighted parts of the country.
Expensive ... So you get together three talking heads
in the studio. You put a pot of flowers on a shelf at the
back. All three are grave, government servants or busi-
ness bosses or academics. They talk. Your eyes glaze
over...
Yes, there is a lot to be done. More training (that
costs money, too); more encouragement; and somehow
or other, raising the real income of the people, so they
can buy a printed medium, and listen to good radio and
TV shows, and thus help to raise their real incomes,
which in turn will make them even more interested in
these incredible development events taking place, which
in turn, etc., etc., round round the benevolent circle of
communication — and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a
development journalism story itself.
So give us what help you can. We think we may be
winning.
ON SALE NOW
Occasional Paper No. 11
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SINGAPORE
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Page 217