Brian Conley's News & Notes

First a caveat, this is in no way a scientific or well-researched commentary on the state of the Indian media. This is a post based on what I’ve heard from Indians, Indian media professionals, and what I’ve experienced firsthand after living in India for one month.

During my first week here I met VK Shashikumar from newsX and we discussed the state of Indian media, as well as how the national “stringer network” works with most national TV news outlets. First of all, his contention, supported by several other Indians I’ve met, is that some 70-75% of the news cycle is dedicated to Delhi/northern India-centric stories.

The stories that are not Delhi-centric are provided via a stringer network throughout India. The reality of this network is that it is primarily Brahmins, which means the majority of India is not represented properly, due to the caste/class system in India. Furthermore, these stringers are tasked primarily with selling subscriptions and advertising, which is clearly a conflict of interest with their role as “independent journalist.”

It is in this climate that Video Volunteers will endeavor to create a network of “community producers” activists turned journalists who will be producing stories from their communities about life in India. The focus will be on life and issues that affect these communities directly, but with an attempt to frame the content for an international audience.

I feel we can say that Vividh will be the first “truly” national news agency because our focus is on telling the stories of *all* Indians, not only the privileged Indians, Brahmins, or Indians considered to be important or whose stories are easy to sell advertisements against. If we can produce stories from a local context, that have watchability, I think our success is assured.

Last week it was announced that Google might be enlisting the help of the NSA to review data gained about cyber attacks, believed to have been instigated by China. Although some critics raised the issue of privacy, it seems a far more interesting question might be “what does a Google-NSA partnership tell us about Obama and Clinton’s new plans for the internet?” In order to answer that, we should look at Clinton’s recent speech on internet freedom, and what that tells us about the administrations’ stance on internet privacy as an element of internet freedom.

A few weeks ago Secretary of State Clinton gave a much publicized address on internet freedom. Unfortunately, selecting from choice quotes, it becomes clear that she is primarily talking about “Freedom” of economic gain and beyond that extending the idea of “Freedom” only in so much as it does not interfere with the interest of the United States government, and our allies. Outlining her speech she mentioned Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech:

Franklin Roosevelt built on these ideas when he delivered his Four Freedoms speech in 1941. Now, at the time, Americans faced a cavalcade of crises and a crisis of confidence. But the vision of a world in which all people enjoyed freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear transcended the troubles of his day. And years later, one of my heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt, worked to have these principles adopted as a cornerstone of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They have provided a lodestar to every succeeding generation, guiding us, galvanizing us, and enabling us to move forward in the face of uncertainty.

These “Freedoms” miss a very key point, all of these freedoms stem from one key freedom, the freedom of privacy. The degree to which an individual, any individual, has privacy is perhaps the greatest single indicator of the degree to which that individual is free. Without privacy an individual cannot partake of the freedoms guaranteed to him or her. Without privacy it is impossible to engage in religious freedom within your community. Without privacy it is impossible for an interracial or same sex couple to engage in freedom of expression. The ability to partake fully of your rights is the very definition of being free, without privacy, the full extent of one’s rights cannot be realized.

The necessity of access to privacy extends across all people and all economic groups. A woman’s ability to be free is directly related to the degree to which she has private space in her home, or in public. A Chinese activist’s ability to be free is directly related to his access to private space to organize peaceful demonstrations against his government. Although privacy is not directly and individually outlined in the US Constitution or Bill of Rights, without privacy we cannot truly access the various rights which are outlined.

The freedom of religion, the freedom against self-incrimination, freedom against unreasonable search, can all be seen as elements of freedom based on a right to privacy. Privacy has, thus far, primarily been protected under a wide interpretation of the 9th amendment. The failure to define an amendment specifically guaranteeing a right to privacy for Americans also hinders our ability to engage in fair and even-handed foreign policy abroad.

Although Secretary Clinton very actively sets up strawmen in the form of nameless terrorists and states limiting freedom of speech and/or communicating messages of hate. If we can all agree that terrorism and violence should not be tolerated, nor should the peddling of anything which exploits another individual without his/her consent, or an individual such as a child who does not have the legal right to consent, why should we not ratify a freedom of privacy for consenting adults to do as they please in private?

Unfortunately our allies in South Korea and India are not being pressed by the United States to permit internet freedom. Although South Korea’s ban appears to be of a primarily social nature, India’s has been more focused on terrorism/hate speech, and more recently looking issues of cyber piracy to the degree of even suggesting a ban on uploading or downloading video via web or mobiles anywhere in India.

Despite strawmen suggesting anonymity is only for criminal elements, anonymity has many faces and many uses. In 2008 I was in China for the Beijing Olympics, where I was working as an “embedded reporter” of sorts, helping ensure that video and photo images of protest actions committed by Students for a Free Tibet evaded Chinese censorship and reached the world. Without technology such as email encryption and encrypted mobiles, it would have been impossible for us broadcast the content that showed the world another face of the Olympics.

Nathan Freitas, who helped organize the global communications network for SFT during the Olympics is now developing an anonymous, secure, and private mobile phone based on Android. Such a device will greatly increase the capabilities of movements for human rights and social justice all over the world.

Given comments from the Secretary of State such as this:

Now, all societies recognize that free expression has its limits. We do not tolerate those who incite others to violence, such as the agents of al-Qaida who are, at this moment, using the internet to promote the mass murder of innocent people across the world. And hate speech that targets individuals on the basis of their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is reprehensible. It is an unfortunate fact that these issues are both growing challenges that the international community must confront together. And we must also grapple with the issue of anonymous speech. Those who use the internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities. But these challenges must not become an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the internet for peaceful political purposes.

It’s difficult to see how Nathan’s project might gain funding under these new State Department initiatives. On the other hand, its equally difficult to see how East German activists praised by Clinton would have been successful with their samizdat had the Stasi and others been successful at entirely limiting their access to privacy and private space.

In the repressive environment of East Germany in the 80s, samizdat pamphlets provided a portal to private space from underneath the curtain placed over public space. Today the guarantee of anonymity online, the guarantee of privacy, is the only way we can protect the internet as a truly free, truly open space for all to gather.

There will be some who raise strawman arguments to criticize my points here, so let me be clear, guaranteeing privacy, or declaring privacy as a human right, does not mean privacy to organize terror, hate speech, or exploitation. Clearly those things are wrong and cannot be protected under the veil of human rights. On the other hand, sometimes legality is relative, it was certainly illegal for me to be in China helping to produce images of activities prohibited by the Chinese State.

The difficulty then is to ask how we might pioneer a future for the internet that guarantees access to the space as well as the right to be anonymous, to obtain privacy, if desired, and how to keep this a safe space for all, safe from the hegemony of one or more States, as well as the interference of terrorists, violent criminals, and others who might wish ill on human society.

The burgeoning accessibility and connectivity of the internet can be a testing ground for a new dedication toward privacy as a human right. Once we make it work online, it only makes sense that we should endeavor to pioneer a guaranteed right to privacy IRL. (In Real Life)

I’m living in Goa now, as you already know if you read my earlier post about my unfortunate accident in Calangute. I live about 3 kilometers from the Video Volunteers office, where I’m coordinating a new Community Journalism program for them this year. I don’t have a car yet, and I may be too much of a hazard to myself and fellow drivers on a scooter. So given that, I walk to work, and nearly end up walking home as well every day.

Motorbikes are a common method of travel for many in Goa, so its possible I’ll decide to trade up from my trusty Keens to something a little more Bladerunner meets MadMax.

Public, consider yourself warned.

Part of what makes the commute so great is the scenery. For the time being the weather is always delightful, not too hot in the morning and pleasantly cool in the evenings.

If I didn’t walk I’d have to pay through the nose for taxis, even without my recent history with the Goan Taxi Mafia, I’d not be likely to take that option. I’ve recently heard that the public bus may be an option, but then I’d get dropped at the beach and have to walk away from the beach in order to get to the office. I’d likely never make it.

Further, I like to walk, and since I’ve thus far spent most of everyday at work hunched over my laptop, clicking and typing away, I’m sure I could use the exercise. So far the commute has tended to be fairly uneventful, aside from the occasional need to dodge a speeding tour bus, or evade the droppings of wayward cattle. I hope it stays that way, although by the time the monsoons arrive, I’ll hopefully have purchased a car and found another way to get my daily exercise!

I’ve added a couple more photos below, to provide a broader feel for what the scenery is like here:

These locations are two interesting landmarks on the walk between Arpora and Baga Bridge, which is exactly where Video Volunteers is located.

The image to the left shows a large store that sells Buddhist art objects and furniture. They rarely, if ever, appear to have customers, and its been posited by some of my colleagues that it may be a front.

To the right you’ll see the entrance to Mackie’s Saturday Nite Bazaar, the epicenter of social life in Arpora/Baga on a Saturday night. Those in the know prefer to head to the Anjuna Saturday night market, I’ve not made it there yet.

Last, but not least, on the road between Nagowa and Baga is the often seen, Temple Elephant, making an appearance for the tourists, offering photos in exchange for a small donation. You’ll note the elephant on the left, I’m on the right, once again on my way to work.

I saw an interesting discussion on Twitter this morning(late night their time, remember I’m in India at GMT+5.5). A variety of #mediaagitators were discussing the term “voiceless.”

Here is a selection:

digidem “Tweets and Blogs: Social Media as a Voice for the Voiceless” @emjacobi invited to give talk at American University on community empowerment

SamGregory @DigiDem Is anyone truly voiceless? Or they are just being ignored if/when they use their voice?

audaciaray .@lksriv @SamGregory @DigiDem I really hate it when people are referred to as “voiceless” – so patronizing and disempowering

maymaym Yes! We’re not voiceless—they’re not listening. ♺ @audaciaray: Hate it when ppl are referred to as “voiceless.” Patronizing & disempowering.

emjacobi @audaciaray @lksriv @samgregory – i’ve been off twitter all day, but i agree completely that no one is “voiceless” & said so.

I fully understand that there is a distinction between being voiceless and being unheard or ignored. I am concerned that for the privileged, and lets be clear, anyone who has direct access to Twitter counts as “privileged” in my book, it can be problematic or worrisome to spend too much time discussing the semantics of our relationship to power and privilege.

Perhaps we can work toward an effective and meaningful definition of those we’d like to be collaborating with?

The primary issue I see with the term “voiceless” is that by defining someone you’d like to collaborate with as disempowered you have immediately created a power divide. You cannot help but stratify your relationship if you define your relationship as one based on their need and your support.

At Small World News we have primarily worked to see how we can use our privilege to support others to magnify their voice, to strengthen their broadcast, and, at our core, provide the skills and support that is asked for, and then get out of the way.

However, I’ve tried hard not to fetishize semantics such that I might exaggerate the capabilities of those with the least access. It can be equally difficult to help those who have never spoken for themselves to know what they have to say. How do we describe someone who does not know what they’d like to say, as a result of generations of disempowerment?

Today I am in India working on creating a loose network of Community Producers, social activists trained to be journalists who will help shed light on the disparate issues facing their communities that have, until now, never been accessible to the commons, to a wider community beyond a small geographic area. It is likely they have as much a need to be heard as to understand what they might say and how it might benefit their local community.

The willingness to listen and ability to have patience to a fault may be more important than trying to provide the tools for others to access the digital communications space.

Do you think the term “voiceless” is at all helpful?

Can we work together toward a more meaningful definition of those who lack access to the media commons, to the digital commons, who have never been listened to, and reflexively may at first appear to be “voiceless?”

I’m sure most everyone from the “developed world” or the so-called “West” who might be reading this has had some experience with a car accident, whether someone backing into them, or running another car off the road(i won’t tell you which one I am…).  Here in India things are resolved a bit differently—->

Yes, that is a tire driving over my foot. That was the first moment I noticed the red Swift taxi outside of the collective din on the street outside Norm’s in Calangute. I was pissed. This <expletive-deleted> had just driven into me in his hurry to get through the crowded traffic, driven over me, and then continued on.

Had I known more about Indian traffic courtesy I would have swallowed my indignance and driven on immediately, and quickly. Instead I chased him, as he was in fact pulling off to the side of the road just ahead. With proper first-world indignance I started yelling at him immediately for driving like an ass and crashing into me while I was stopped on the side of the road.

He came at me like a thug and immediately turned off the ignition on my scooter, I went for the key and he pulled it out. Remembering everything I’ve learned the last 5 years around the world, I held on to that key and wouldn’t let go until I’d pried it back out of his hand.

“Why you drive like this? You pay me!”

At this point I was really shocked, and I also began to realize I had certainly gotten in a bit over my head. At the same time I was sure this guy was at fault.

Moments later I was surrounded by a dozen indian guys who apparently had nothing better to do than stand around and watch the spectacle. Looking back I wonder if this wasn’t some kind of reversed social roles post-colonial justice-letting, but in the moment I was only thinking about Robert Fisk’s story of being beaten by a mob in Afghanistan and having to fight his way out.

After I had the keys, the guy grabbed my headphones cord and I told him to let go, the cord snapped, just at the point of the connection to the iPhone in my pocket. I’m lucky to have a wonderful mother-in-law who saw fit to gift me a pair of Bose Mobile-on-Ears, which have a detachable headphone-to-player cord, otherwise I’d quite likely be out a pair of much-too-expensive headphones.

This guy wouldn’t budge. He just kept saying “You give me money!”

Of course at the moment I had maybe 230 rupees, given that I had been on my way to work when a colleague lent me the scooter to try and get a feel for it. Little did I know my first day on a scooter would turn into my first accident on a scooter.

What you have to understand is that all these guys surrounding me are there for the spectacle, and they may or may not know what the situation is. Either way, they’re on the other guys side, not yours.

Moments later I was crashing back into this crowd of guys as the taxi-thug pushed me hard in the chest. I wasn’t having any of it, and apparently he wasn’t either. He wanted me to go to “my hotel” and come back with the money. It was about this time he grabbed the headphones around my neck, which are worth roughly 10 times the amount of money he was trying to extort.

It seemed that he was willing to agree to go with me to “my hotel” which, as I told him repeatedly, didn’t exist because I am working for an Indian trust organization, and my *house* is quite a ways off in Arpora, toward Nagowa. So what you’ll notice if you ever get into a similar situation is that its never just one guy you’ll have to deal with, it’s one guy, plus his “posse.”

So taxi thug got into the car, another guy was driving, and a third guy climbed into the back seat. Apparently none of them spoke passable English, which, in my experience thus far, is a bit strange for Goa. I got in the back, but wouldn’t close the door, I expected if I’ve agreed to go with them on a ride to get the money this guy wanted, he should do me the decency of giving my stuff back.

To recap, at this point he had my headphones, the headphones cable, oh and my sunglasses which he picked up after pushing me down into the scooter. They really have a discourteous way of dealing with people they don’t like/consider fools, however I can’t help wondering if they didn’t learn it from their British and Portuguese colonial forebears…

So, misunderstanding what I wanted apparently, they reshuffled the car and taxi-thug climbed in back with me. Apparently in colloquial Konkani the appropriate reaction at this point, to someone making a reasonable request that you disagree with, is a punch in the head.

Fortunately I was still wearing the scooter helmet. Also fortunately, when taxi-thug jumped out of the car and came around, apparently ready to give me a full-on beating, the crowd came to my aid and talked him down.

To resolve this rather rambling story, let’s just say, I paid the man. Which is lucky for me, as I was informed later by my Indian colleagues, had I been capable of calling the police(I didn’t yet have an operational mobile), I would have only ended up paying “The Man,” and I’d have had to pay him 5 times taxi-thug’s going rate, as a pay-off for violating the “driving without a license” ordinance.

Which is how I learned that in India, if a taxi driver crashes into you, you drive away, very fast, and hope he can’t catch you.

PS. Thanks to Keen’s awesome sandals, my foot survived.

PPS. Any endorsement of a product is mine alone, and not related to sponsorship of any kind.