Specialized Reporting in Nepali Daily Newspapers

1. Title of the study: Specialized News Reporting

2. Background

Journalism is the profession of giving truthful account of events to citizens what’s going around the world that matters to them. Once Winston Churchill said, “Journalism is a guardian that never sleeps and protects freedom of the people.” He emphasized the role of journalists in functioning of modern free and democratic society. Journalisms through its media have not only informed people but also protected their right to freedom. Journalists are the foot soldiers who go in the field, collect information, process, produce and distribute to citizens. While ensuring people’s right to be informed, journalists rely on the technique of reporting.

Reporting is a journalist’s word for research for the collection of data, for the gathering of facts. This research is topical. It deals with current events and contemporary issues and people. Reporting is the art, the skill, the business of gathering information for immediate use (Hough, 1995). Reporting can be termed as the process of gathering information for producing news for the assigned media. Every reporting involves investigation depending on the nature of the story.

One of the most important skills to develop as a journalist is to know the most efficient way to research a possible news story. This may be a short process involving a couple of phone calls to ascertain or clarify facts with which you’ve already been provided, or it could be a lengthy and difficult task, involving making a series of phone calls over a number of days, conducting interviews in person, attempting to persuade people to provide you with the information, and even carrying out surreptitious research to find out facts that other people or organizations many not want you to know (Fleming and Others, 2006).

Specialized reporting also known as beat reporting is far different than day to day reporting or conventional reporting. Specialized reporting can be defined as the advanced approach adopted for digging out information, which is not always easy to discover.

Many news organizations assign journalists to cover specific areas, geographic or topical, known as “beats.” Beats are rare in the smallest newsrooms, where every reporter is expected to cover every kind of story. But in larger news organizations, print and broadcast, journalists may have the opportunity to focus on a particular type of news. Some beats are traditional: government, police, courts, and business, for example. Others vary with the territory. Depending on a community’s make-up, reporters might be assigned to cover the environment, or the elderly, or education as a beat (Potter, 2006).

However, specialized reporting doesn’t confine itself with the ‘beat reporting’ only. The horizons of specialized reporting has widened with the passage of time. Specialized or beat reporters are not supposed to only report a press conference related to his/her beat. Besides covering every stories that arise on their beat, they are expected to report stories that go beyond formal programs. They need to bring out information through their own channels what is hidden, holds significance for public and deserves to be brought into the light. At this point, specialized reporting goes beyond beat reporting and attracts other genre of advanced reporting like in-depth reporting, investigative reporting, interpretative reporting, crime reporting, environmental reporting, agency reporting and others.

Specialization entails in-depth knowledge of issues, authoritative and quality products produced with the help of extensive, well-informed and reliable contacts. Increasing specialization to meet the demands of society has evolved in many countries (Kharel, 2010).  

Depth reporting or also known as in-depth reporting is one in which the reporter goes deep into the subject. It involves some investigation and necessary interpretation. Depth reporting is what makes readers aware of all aspects of a given subject by giving them all possible information, including background and atmosphere. It doesn’t tell reporter only what happened but also ‘why’ and ‘how’ it happened. It provides the entire story in comprehensive, balanced and well-organized way providing concrete facts and figures.

Another branch of specialized reporting – investigative reporting is coming up with the information of public importance, which someone at authority wishes to keep secret. Investigative journalism involves exposing to the public matters that are concealed – either deliberately by someone in a position of power, or accidently, behind a chaotic mass of facts and circumstances that obscure understanding. It requires using both secret and open sources and documents. Conventional news reporting depends largely and sometimes entirely on materials provided by others (such as police, government, companies etc.); it is fundamentally reactive, if not passive. Investigative reporting, in contrast, depends on material gathered or generated through the reporter’s own initiative (which is why it is often called “enterprise reporting”) (Hunter and Hanson, 2011).

Based on these backgrounds the following categories of specialized reporting can be drawn;

•        Government and Politics
•          Business and Economics
•          Health, Science, and the Environment
•          Police, Crime and Courts
•          Environment
•          Development
•          In-depth
•          International Affairs
•          Investigative Reporting
•          In-depth Reporting
•          Interpretative Reporting

As Deborah Potter observes, “Journalism is both a profession and craft, since journalists draw on specialized skills and adhere to common standards. So what makes journalism different from other occupation is like medicine or law, which could be described in similar terms? Perhaps the greatest difference is the special role the news media play in free society.” Every journalist must possess sound knowledge of basic reporting skills like observation, finding things, verifying information, interviewing, asking questions and others. Besides these skills, a specialized reporter should ask the following questions as suggested by Eric Nalder, the reporter with Seattle Times.

•         Who are the players?
•         Who is in charge?
•         Who are the regulators?
•         What are the rules?
•         How are things done?
•         Where are the mistakes recorded?
•         Where is the spending recorded?
•         Who knows the real story and how can I get it?

3. Objectives of the study

With the growing number of private media in Nepal, competition among these media houses have also increased. To perform better and excel in the field, media houses have invested huge money hiring best reporters, buying latest technologies, and breaking stories earlier. Assigning beats to reporters and encouraging covering special reports that require investigation is gaining momentum in Nepali media houses. Well to do and influential media have their specialized reports assigned on politics, government and parliament, health, economics, sports, environment and other possible areas. 

However, single reporter covering every possible events and beat is still not obsolete in Nepal. Economically struggling media have fewer reporters so they lack specialized reporting in their content.

Based on these assumptions, the major objective of this study is to assess the quality of specialized reporting in Nepali media. Besides, the study also has some specific objectives as followings;

1.          To evaluate the published specialized reports;
2.          To find out strength and weakness of the selected stories using tools and techniques of specialized reporting;
3.          To suggest improvement for quality specialized reporting.     

4. Methodology

 The study of media content is known as content analysis, which is one of the most reliable and widely accepted methodologies for examining the quality of media content. As this study also aims to strive to test the quality of specialized reporting of Nepali media, so content analysis method was adopted.

Besides, sampling methodology was also applied for this study. Six specialized reports published in various Nepali and English daily newspapers were selected randomly for this study.

5. Limitation of the study

Nepali print media are often criticized for doing ‘Said Journalism’ and spending time and space on reporting day to day events. As a result, number of specialized reporting is relatively low in Nepali print media. Finding good specialized reporting is one of the limitations of this study. While selecting samples, only print media especially daily newspapers published from capital were selected, which is another limitation of this study. Also, only six stories were randomly selected to assess their quality, so the study is limited to reflect the overall quality of specialized reports published in Nepali newspapers.     

6. Significance of the study

The study will come up with the knowledge about the standards of specialized reporting being practiced in Nepali media especially in daily newspapers. Also, this study will identify the major strength and weakness of Nepali media for reporting specialized or in-depth reporting, which is way different than day to day reporting. Upon the completion, this study will emerge beneficial for identifying trend of specialized reporting in Nepal and will pave the way for further studies.      

6. Analysis

Altogether six specialized reports published in various English and Nepali daily newspapers over a week were randomly selected for this study.

Selected news reports are presented in the given table.

S.N.	News Title	Beat or Specialized Area	Published Newspaper	Published Date
1.	विकास बजेट सधैं फ्रिज	Development	Kantipur Daily	July 25, 2014
2.	Pesticide residues in vegetables	Health	Republica Daily	July 25, 2014
3.	Man held with 20 kg gold at Tatopani	Crime	The Himalayan Times	July 27, 2014
4.	Call for concentrated efforts to fight silent cancer	Health	The Himalayan Times	July 28, 2014
5.	सडकमा ज्यानको जोखिम	Road Safety	Kantipur Daily	July 29, 2014
6.	Encroachment heightens flood risk in Tinau River	Disaster	Republica Daily	July 29, 2014

Table 1: Selected Specialized News Reports 

(All the sample stories are included in Annex 1)

Selected news stories are analyzed individually.

Sample 1:   

The first selected news sample with headline “विकास बजेट सधैं फ्रिज” literally meaning, “Development budget always frozen”, was published in Kantipur Daily on July 25, 2014. The story was a wrap-up story, which collected the situation of budget gone unspent in all over the country. The story has been contributed by six reporters – Bhawanit Bhatta from Kanchanpur, Mohan Budhayer from Kailali, Khagendra Awasthi from Baitandi, Arjun Shah from Bajura, DR Panta from Dadeldhura and Mohan Panta from Doti. The trend of budget going unspent is not new to our country. However, this story deserves serious attention, as many districts do not receive development amount in time and the development activities are in limbo, these districts have failed to utilize the allocated budget money and allowed them to get frozen.

This sample of is a good piece of specialized writing for the issue raised and its presentation of information. The story starts with the figure of unspent budget in Kanchanpur district. According to the report, one third of allocated budget i.e. about RS 500 million. Then, the story gives further details about the amount returned by various other development offices of the district. To explain the reason behind budget going unspent in Kanchanpur, two government officials have been quoted.

In similar ways, the story discusses about other districts like Kailali, Darchula and Baitadi, where also a large amount of budget have gone frozen. The report provides several data and figures about the budget in the following paragraphs, but the report lack the concrete explanation behind the trend of huge amount of budget going frozen. The information related to budget figures are taken from official sources, thus looks credible. Only six officials representing various government offices are attributed in the story, however, they have only talked about the amount of the unspent budget than explaining the logic behind the negligence of utilizing allocated budget, which is the major drawback of this story. Also, the story has ignored the voices of citizens who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the development budget, as no citizens are attributed in the story, though it has been based in six different districts of Far-Western Region of Nepal. The concluding paragraph of the story serves as the background of the situation and helps in introducing the trend of budget freezing, which has been going on in recent years.

In nutshell, as the in-depth stories are also concerned with explaining the impact apart from the detailed information and background, the story fails to interpret the consequences may arise with the return of development budget and the areas to be affected due to the untimely utilization of the budget. The reporter has only compiled information from various official sources.   

Sample 2:

The second sample was taken from Republica English daily, entitled “Pesticide residues in vegetables”, published on July 25, 2014. This report was published as the special report for their weekly edition “The Week”. The story has raised a serious issue of excessive pesticides used in growing vegetables, which has short and long term effect on human health. When the debate over use of excessive pesticides and its impact on human health is going on and people have been concerned, the story looks fairly relevant. The issue of the story justifies why the story

deserves to be a specialized or in-depth story.

On a quick look to the story, the writer, Roshani Dhamala gives the impression of well-researched story, which can be observed soon in the first paragraph. With the reference of the lab test done by the Ministry of Agricultural Development, reporter Dhamala has successfully established her point of view that use of excessive pesticides is in practice in nearby district of Kathmandu. Then, she while digging the fact related to the excessive use of pesticide, the reporter is confronted with groundbreaking information – Due to the lack of knowledge and training, farmers are in the dark about the waiting period (the time they are supposed to wait for after spraying pesticides and before harvesting crops) which seems to be the major culprit for the current mayhem, writes Dhamala.

Dhamala has travelled to Kavre district, the home of large number of vegetable supplier farmers to Kathmandu. Her travel to get the first hand information from farmers has added extra essence to the story. During her travel to Panchkhal, Kavre, she meets many farmers involved in vegetable farming and relying on pesticides for better and quicker production. She discovers the haplessness of farmers, when one farmer Dhruba Prasad Kafle of Paanchkhal–6 says “So, either we’ve to use pesticides, or we’ve to stop farming at all.” Upon her visit to the fields, she finds out another reason behind the rampant pesticides usage is the massive use of hybrid seeds in farming, which is more likely to suffer attack of pests. In this way, she has provided actual scenario of pesticides use in vegetable farm through the reference of farmers.

The story unfolds another dimension with the excerpts from Yagya Prasad Giri, Head of the Entomology Division at Nepal Agricultural Research Council, who clarifies the way pesticides are used has been a real problem to deal with. Expert opines that farmers’ unawareness towards the use of pesticides has been the major cause behind the rampant use of pesticides.

Representative of Ministry of Agriculture Development, Local Government Bodies like Chief of the District Agricultural Development Office, local agro-vet owners, dietician and farmers are attributed in this story, which has not only balanced the story but also opened every possible dimension of the issue. The story doesn’t end here. The story also gives some easy techniques to minimize the harmful effect of the pesticide used vegetables, which is explained by dietician Rashmi Shrestha. As they say, something started well must end well; the story gives another viable alternative for being safe from the effect of pesticides. The story presents organic farming as the viable solution to the problem. For this, the reporter gives the success story of American couple Jim Danish and Judith Chase, who has been successfully running an organic farm Patlekhet, Kavre. Because of its richness for information and examining every possible area related to issue – problem to solution – the story is a perfect example of specialized reporting.

Sample 3:

The third sample selected during this study can be an issue of crime beat. The report entitled “Man held with 20 kg gold at Tatopani” was published on the official website of The Himalayan Times (www.thehimalayantimes.com) on 27^th July, 2014 and on the front page of the English daily The Himalayan Times the following day. The Himalayan Times’ district correspondent Raj Kumar Parajuli has written this story.

Arrest of twenty-six-year-old Dawa Lama of Listi VDC in Sindhupalchowk with 20 kilos of gold is the biggest ever haul of smuggled gold at Tatopani border point. Thus, this story surely deserves the greater media attention. This report is written solely based on the secondary information provided by police. SI Jas Bahadur Tamang is the lone source attributed in the story. Despite relatively less attributed sources, the story has presented strong background related to the issue of gold smuggling through Tatopani Boarder.

“Five months ago, Barhabise police had seized 10 kg gold from Araniko Highway and one Nepali and two Chinese nationals were arrested. The next day, police arrested one Chinese national with one kg gold from the Tatopani border point.

Eight months ago, police had seized nine kg gold from Dhulikhel check post. The next day, Tatopani police arrested a Chinese national with three kg gold from Tataopani customs. Nearly 27 months ago, police had seized 19 kg gold from Koteshwor in Kathmandu.”

Likewise, the report has discovered some other unheard facts about smuggling of gold though they are not attributed by any sources.

“It is estimated that gold smuggling from China’s Khasa to Nepal has increased after India tightened gold import. According to traders, 100 kg gold is being smuggled to India from China via Nepal every day. Smugglers can make up to Rs 6 lakh profit on one kilo of gold by selling it in the Indian market.”   

The story has also used unattributed source in the following paragraph. “According to sources, smugglers procure gold from Hong Kong, UAE, Singapore and Malaysia and bring it to Nepal via Tataopani border point through Lhasa.”      

In conclusion, it can be said that the story is a typical piece of crime beat reporting with large dependency on police for information.

Sample 4:

The fourth sample acquired for this study is entitled “Call for concentrated efforts to fight silent cancer,” from The Himalayan Times published on July 28, 2014. The report is a news story of health beat. The report published on the occasion of World Hepatitis Day, opens with the threatening figure. The report in reference to the study conducted by World Health Organization’s New Delhi-based regional office claims that viral hepatitis kills approximately half a million people every year in Southeast Asia.

This report can be an example of story written based on the report, data, documents, polls and other sources of secondary information. This story holds a greater significant so it was published with reasonable space in the newspaper. Many information included in this story are new and relevant to public and can attract people towards the story and also to be aware about this dangerous disease to be safe in the future.

“An estimated 100 million people are currently infected with hepatitis B virus and another 30 million with hepatitis C virus.”

The reporter has only solely relied on the report for information, but has interviewed Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director for Southeast Asia for further information, which has added more authenticity in the story. Dr. Singh has been attributed in the story, where she has shed light on the situation of disease in the region and treatment possibilities of the disease. Later, more unattributed but significant information has been incorporated in the story.

“According to health officials, prevalence of hepatitis is estimated to be 0.9 per cent in Nepal. There are five main types of hepatitis that are caused by a virus, A, B, C, D, and E — plus types X and G.

The Child Health Division under the Ministry of Health and Population said the government is providing 700,000 vaccines to children under one year of age every year.”

What makes this story more informative and appealing is the use of graphics for explaining important facts related to the Hepatitis disease. Additionally, the story has successfully provided information on various types of Hepatitis disease, its causes, effects and prevention. Therefore, this report can be termed as the fine and informative piece of specialized reporting completely based on report or documents.

Sample 5:

The fifth sample of news deals with the serious issue of road safety in the country. The story entitled “सडकमा ज्यानको जोखिम”, meaning “Life at risk on the road” was published in Nepali language Kantipur Daily on July 29, 2014. The report is a compilation of several reports contributed by its various district correspondents – Kumbharaj Rai from Khotang, Abadhesh Kumar Jha from Biratnagar, Bharat Jarghamagar from Lahan and Parvat Portel from Karbhitta. The report starts with the anecdote of five people injured in a bus accident nine months ago, who could not go home as they don’t have money to pay to the hospital. So, the story has used case study technique, which personalizes the story and also adds human interest.

The story smoothly moves from specific to generalization with explaining number of accidents and casualties in last three fiscal years. Number of people killed in road accidents has increased in the last fiscal year, which has been verified by the police. The information provided by the police has been attributed. According to the police, driver’s negligence has been the major reason behind increase in number of cases. One transport entrepreneur has also been quoted in the story related to Khotang district.

The situation of road accidents in different districts has been explained in separate paragraphs. A total of 415 people have died in road accidents in various parts of eastern Nepal, which has been attributed by the local police. Another anecdote of Gangadharlal Mahato of Lahan-5, Hanumannagar has been used in the story for making a move from eastern part of Nepal to a particular city – Lahan. Besides attribution and anecdotes, the story has also provided significant information like number of accidents, number of killed and injured passengers, and also the leading reasons behind accidents generated by police. At last, the story explains how the local police with the help of students and local public are raising awareness to minimize road accidents.

In conclusion, it can be said that some useful techniques like attribution and anecdotes have been used in the story, but the story is largely relied on the information provided by police. The report should also have raised the issue of compensation to injured people.  Do they get any compensation?

Sample 6:

The story entitled, “Encroachment heightens flood risk in Tinau River”, was published in English daily Republica July 29, 2014 captures great significant. Shrinking of Tinua River has increased the risk of overflow and inundation of homes built close to its banks, which can cause loss of human lives and property.  An engineer KR Dahal, who has studied the flood risk has been interviewed and also attributed in the story.

“The locals living on the banks of Tinau River are under grave threats."

 "No matter how strong embankments we build, they are not going to be protected."

Use of the photo of the river has made the story real and shows how the nearby human settlement can be affected if the flood comes. Several other important in formations regarding the river’s condition have been used in the story, which serves as the background information and way out to avoid the possible tragedy.

Experts say the Tinau River needs a breadth of 237 meters to flow freely without causing any troubles to people living on its banks. But due to rampant encroachment, the river is in some places as wide as merely 50 meters. In Buddhanagar, Top Majuwa and Sundarnagar areas of Butwal, Tinau River´s breadth is not more than 70 meters. And these are the areas where the river has been causing havoc almost every year.

Extraction of sand and gravel from Tinau River is also rampant. Sand extraction has caused the river to get deeper. Experts say it has led to risk of land erosion. In some areas, Tinau River is visibly eating away the foundations of cemented houses. Such houses could collapse if water volume rises in Tinau River during the monsoon season.

Two more persons have been attributed in the story, which doesn’t look sufficient for such grave issue. Local peoples likely to be affected due to flood have not been quoted in the story that makes the story incomplete and unbalanced. Their obligation to live on the banks of river despite the threat to life should have been mentioned in the story. Similarly, neither government authorities nor their response regarding the issue have been incorporated in this news reports. Direct quote of representative of local body could have explained on what is being done to thwart the possible disaster. Also, the report should have discovered what the local authority have done in the past and why the sand extraction from the river was not stopped.

Thus, despite the seriousness of the issue, the reporter has failed to utilize the tools and techniques of specialized reporting.

7. Conclusion and Recommendations

The practice of specialized or in-depth reporting is still poor in Nepali media. Though, the trend of assigning reporters a separate beat has evolved in the recent times, only some media houses are able to afford individual reporters for various and ever-increasing beats with the growing competition among media houses. Even reporters assigned to cover specific beats are more concerned with day to day reporting and covering press conference, press release and meetings. Such reporters are only focusing on what has happened not on how it happened and why it happened. Beat reporters are not adapting in-depth approach while following their stories. One thing they lack in their stories is the presentation is presentation. The story doesn’t look different than day to day reporting. So, it can be said that Nepali print media has been doing ‘Beat Reporting’, which has not yet reached the level of in-depth and investigative reporting. In the words of Deborah Potter, what they need to do is “Walk the Beat.”

Based on this study, following recommendations are suggested:

•          Media houses should have more beat reporters in the newsroom to cover specific beats;
•          Reporters should be trained to report on specialized reporting;
•          Reporters should be given knowledge on difference between day to day reporting and specialized reporting;
•          Reporter should have sound knowledge about the ‘beat’ they are assigned to cover;
•          Media houses should encourage reporters to conduct in-depth stories, though it can be time consuming sometimes.
•   

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(This paper was prepared as the partial fulfillment of the assignment for Advanced Reporting - JMC 552 in Second Semester of Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication, Tribhuwan University, Nepal. )  

References:

Kharel, P. (2010). A Study of Journalism. Kathmandu: Nepal Association of Media Education.

Potter, Deborah. (2006). Handbook of Independent Journalism. USA: Bureau of International Information Programs, US Department of State.   

Fleming, C., E. Hemmingway, G. Moore and D. Waleford. (2006). An Introduction to Journalism. Kathmandu: Bhrikuti Academic Publications.    

Hough, George. A. (1995). News Writing (5^th edition). New Delhi: Goyal Saab.

Hunter, Mark Lee. and Nils Hanson. (2011). What is Investigative Journalism?. In Story Based Inquiry: A Manual for Investigative Journalists (Mark Lee Hunter ed.) France: UNESCO.