Abstract
The 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and one of Time's 100 most influential people, looks out from magazine cover. We revere her now, but how well did we look after her then? Once we look beyond her current celebrity, I believe Malala, shot and seriously wounded by the Taliban after the media celebrated her, raises important questions about journalistic culture.
The New York Times, for instance, seemed unworried about publicising her views and identifying her, placing her in danger. Would it do the same if it were covering some violent group inside the US? Would journalists in the west put their own children at risk the way they do with children in poor countries? The fact is insensitive treatment by elite media outlets such as The New York Times and the BBC made Malala vulnerable to Taliban attack, with horrible consequences for the teenage girl, still under treatment at a hospital in Great Britain, and her family.
I am not blameless. Shortly after she was shot in October last year, I raised in these pages my doubts about my role in bringing Malala to wider attention. Back in 2009 – at the peak of the Taliban's rule in areas of Pakistan – I was a journalist attached to a local TV channel in Pakistan and worked as co-producer of a New York Times documentary project with Malala called Class Dismissed in Swat Valley. I also worked alongside the reporter Abdul Hai Kakar, who helped Malala write a diary for the BBC in 2009. My closeness to the story helps me to deconstruct the coverage that exposed her to the Taliban.
When we recorded the plight of the Swat Valley education system under the rule of Taliban militants, Malala, as a vocal student, provided a chance to highlight the issue. I understood that The New York Times would focus on education and that Taliban brutality would not be its main subject. A month after the Times reporter's two-day trip in Swat, I was disappointed. The Times's morbid fascination with the Taliban presented Malala as a symbol of resistance when she was still living with her family in Taliban-controlled territory.
I became concerned about Malala's safety. My New York Times colleague tried to allay my concerns by sending me his editor's reply: “Gory scenes are actually part of the Taliban's tactics. It is real life on public display for Swat citizens. It is not the media using a gory scene to create drama, but it's the source – the Taliban – who puts this stuff on display. We are reporting the real life of the citizens. Not using gory stuff to sensationalise.”
The American editor explained why they made Taliban violence the main feature of the film. “It is not shocking, it is almost expected.” I believe he overlooked the fact that the child protagonist was within reach of Taliban who, three years later, would try to kill her. But our failure to look after sources is an erosion of journalistic values.
The New York Times was not the only media organization to take an interest in her. Malala's diaries, published by the BBC website under the pen name “Gulmakai,” appeared at the peak of the conflict in the Swat Valley in 2009, triggering a debate in Pakistan. Was it the BBC that disclosed Malala's pen name, or her father Ziauddin? In his radio interview, the BBC global Urdu Service chief, Aamir Ahmed Khan, was quick to put the burden on Malala's father. But long before her father disclosed anything, journalists in Peshawar and Swat, including me, knew Malala was writing diary entries for the BBC as “Gulmakai.” I assume from my association with journalism in the region that it was not difficult for the Taliban to know who was writing against them. Normally, journalists covering the “war on terror” from Peshawar and Swat cultivate good relations with the Taliban. They benefit from the Taliban's terror videos and information, which they sell at exorbitant prices to eager international wire services.
I believe the BBC was at best careless of Malala's safety; at worst, in violation of an ethical code. The diary was a commitment between Malala and the BBC correspondent Abdul Hai Kakar. Who leaked Malala's identity to other journalists in Peshawar? Those who know Malala and Kakar do not doubt their integrity. Malala was a handy source, ready to speak on camera despite the Taliban. But she and her father were always conscious of their limitations. They were worried about the Taliban blowing up girls' schools in Swat. More than that, they were worried about their own safety and their family-owned school, which was their only source of income.
Despite knowing that Malala's identity was in danger of being more widely revealed and that the Taliban would settle scores once they got the chance, the BBC encouraged the 11-year-old by giving her a platform to write what she could not say publicly against the Taliban. The Peshawar University journalism professor and media critic Faizullah Jan has asked “if the pre-teen Malala was mature enough to understand the consequences of what she said against the Taliban?” It's a question that is central to security of sources in conflict zones.
Malala's security was not an issue as long as she served editorial interests. The BBC correspondent and I saw her as a promising agent to help inspire international audiences. The consequences, however, should teach journalists that elite, western media coverage can be exploitative on a global scale, creating insecurity for the sources they identify and who have no means of escape.