In this TED talk, Leslie Dodson explores the complexity encountered by journalists and researchers in presenting their narratives to the public. Journalists and researchers could be covering the same event or issue. However, their approaches to presenting them to the public are very different—sue contradictors ethics and practices in reporting. For instance, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have, for a long time, used gender as a key aspect of their campaigns and programs (Dodson, 2011). In many cases, they use women and children to represent poverty and diseases in developing countries.
On the other hand, they represent men as the perpetrators and women as the victims. Moreover, they exclude the important roles that men play in alleviating hunger and poverty. She argues that many of the stories used are inconvenient to the presentation of certain narratives because they are mainly biased (Dodson, 2011). She criticizes organizations that violate the rights of children in order to make profits or attract an audience for their stories. She urges journalists, researchers, and NGOs to avoid misrepresenting facts in their narratives. For instance, some journalists and NGOs refer to Africa as a country and a disaster zone where poverty and hunger dominate. She rejects such imagery because instead of being productive, it is reductive (Dodson, 2011).
References
Dodson, L. (2011). Don’t misrepresent Africa. Web.