Reporting the Orient

About the Book

How much of what we read, hear and see reported of Asia reflects Asian realities?  How much reportage is distorted by the priorities and prejudices of the western journalists who are supposed to be providing “objective” coverage?

This book argues that western foreign correspondents continue to see Asia through colonial eyes. It shows how contemporary correspondents are the most recent recruits to an elitist journalism "club" whose founding members identified with the European empires and their intellectual successors: the products of and leading exponents of a professional culture which encourages reporters to meet the expectations of their editors, colleagues and competitors. Themes evident in the work of earlier reporters can be seen to continue from one generation to the next.

This book examines the work of Australian correspondents covering the effective end of the Indo China war. It looks in detail at the reportage of the UN sponsored elections in Cambodia, which brought an end to Khmer Rouge military resistance. The author’s field research found that:

• Australian correspondents' reporting of post colonial Asia was still framed in Western perceptions of the Orient.

• As a result of this identification with Western prerogatives and priorities, correspondents neglected interpretations of events which local people (Asians) deemed significant.

• Further, correspondents were guilty of the negative stereotyping, frequently portraying the Orient as a place of misgovernment and arbitrary violence and thereby justifying Western political, economic and ultimately military intervention.

Contemporary correspondents pointed to lack of adequate training, bureaux infrastructure and editorial agendas as reasons contributing to what many of them saw as unsatisfactory coverage of the region. Yet analysis of their own work shows that their stated preferences for Western sources can be reflected in the sources quoted in their stories. They remained preoccupied with preconceptions of how Asia should be, as seen through Western eyes, rather than how many Asians feel it should be reported.

This book examined the work of contemporary correspondents by considering them in context of Australian journalism culture, reflecting on the work of their predecessors and interviewing and questioning them about their opinions, documenting their work in the field and analysing their coverage of the Cambodian elections.

Their narrow selection of sources led not only to misreporting of those elections, but also to the sort of negative stereotyping imposed on Sihanouk, and for that matter the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, misreporting of the Cambodian elections did more than misinform readers, listeners and viewers. It could be expected to contribute to a new set of false expectations among Australian journalists about Asia.

Alan Knight

About the Author

Alan Knight is a journalism professor with a specialist interest in the work of Foreign Correspondents and Asian Studies. The foundation Chair of Journalism and Media Studies at Central Queensland University, Dr Knight is an electronic media journalist who has worked as a reporter and editor for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Television Hong Kong and Australian Associated Press. A former Director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, he is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Asian Studies at Hong Kong University. He is co-author of Reporting Hong Kong: the foreign press and the handover (Curzon Press: London, 1999). The Far Eastern Economic Review said he combined "the academic's mastery of research and analysis with the journalist's ability to interpret events in a lively manner". The Japan Times called his work '"superbly balanced, exhaustively researched". http:www/ejournalism.au.com