On Tuesday 21st January 30 MIRTHers came to listen to Shyamantha Asokan talk about her experience in journalism and share reflections about issues including ethics and bias. She is currently a BBC journalist covering Birmingham and the West Midlands.
She started by telling us about her work as a reporter and photographer in the UK, Nigeria, India and the USA and her writing for The Economist, The Washington Post, the Financial Times and Reuters.
Questions from the floor started to flow very quickly – at Shyamantha’s invitation. She was impressed by how engaged and interactive our MIRTH audience was! And she was very good at throwing questions back to us, because is passionate about seeking feedback from her audiences.
She moved on to talk about her current work and the kind of stories she is covering and producing in Birmingham and the West Midlands. These include stories about motherhood and women’s rights. She also gathers in-depth case studies for NGOs – and it’s in that capacity that she came to know about MIRTH, when she was hoping to write a story about us.
Discussion ranged across current issues about how people access news, what they think about different media sources, impressions of degrees of bias, the borders between reporting and opinion, and of course how ethical journalists are (compared to for example social media ’news’ providers).
Our members agreed that it had been a fascinating talk, with useful insights into the world of journalism; and that we had really appreciated the opportunities to question & comment, and interact with Shyamantha.
MIRTH 