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Wielding Power of the Word in Fight on Poverty
ADB Review [ August-October 2006 ]

For the special award winners of the Developing Asia Journalism Awards 2006, journalism is more than a profession; it is a way to fight for the rights of the poor and oppressed.

STEPPING OUT DAJA 2006 finalists visit an ADB—assisted STEP—UP slum redevelopment project in Muntinlupa, Manila

"I consider journalism as a way to give voice to the unheard," says M. Suchitra, 43, of India, the first female winner of the Development Journalist of the Year. "I wasn't the sort of person who would find security in a 9—to—5 job… I always wanted a job which would enable me to do something for the people."

Frustrated with mainstream media, she quit her job after 12 years to start The Quest Features & Footage in Cochin, Kerala, an independent media initiative that focuses on social, environmental, developmental, gender, health, and human right issues.

"About 320 million Indians go to bed without food every night, and recent data suggest this already alarming situation is getting worse," she says. "Despite the magnitude and intensity of this problem, it remains on the margins of media coverage… The lives and well—being of hundreds of millions of people will depend on the extent to which our public discussion can be broadened and made more informed."

Supara Janchitfah, 44, who, as a Bangkok Post reporter, won this year's Development Woman Journalist Award, also sees journalism as a way of exposing poverty, corruption, and abuse.

"The poor are powerless and penniless to fight state officials and their top—down policies; they cannot fight gigantic organizations and firms," she says. "I also want to redress the stereotype of some groups of people who have different faiths and political orientations."

A returning finalist, having been placed in the inaugural DAJA in Tokyo in 2004, Ms. Janchitfah sees her future goal as "working hard for the people who have rights but no voice in society."

The Fiji Islands' Samisoni Pareti, 38, winner of the Islands Journalist Award, has faced not only pressures to conform but physical dangers in his work. He had to flee for his life during riots in 2000 in his homeland. In Solomon Islands 2 years later, a key advisor to the Prime Minister was assassinated on the way to meet him at his hotel.

Currently the local correspondent for Radio Australia, having recently completed a year hosting a current affairs show for the Fiji Broadcasting Commission, Mr. Pareti says his aim is to keep telling and writing the stories that ought to be told. "To do that, I have to keep fighting against man—made barriers like societal pressures and prejudices," he says.

At an early stage in his career is Rith Sam, 26, winner of this year's Young Development Journalist award for his article in the Phnom Penh Post on Cambodian women fighting the demons of war.

He says he became a journalist to "help the country better all fields, especially the poor," while his ambition is to be a good international professional journalist. "I am very lucky to have a chance to work for an independent newspaper where I can write articles about the truth," he says.

He adds that he felt great honor and excitement to be selected as one of the finalists in DAJA 2006.

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