Western governments and Western publications may have an antagonistic relationship at home, but overseas, they work together. Western governments clearly see the operation of foreign correspondents as working in their national interest, and so push for increased access, more open immigration rules, and lack of government interference in non-Western countries. A classic example of this was when the liberal US media, which missed no chance to criticise Donald Trump, went into hyperdrive for a few days as they applauded his decision to drop bombs on Syria and the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan. When it comes to war and displaying US military might across the world even when it is destructive and illegal, the media – both right and left – gets in line, as doing so is simply being patriotic and all values go out of the window. After all, “foreign lives don’t matter”. As an example, the Western media gave so much coverage to the unfortunate deaths of 12 US soldiers killed at the airport, yet hardly said anything about the 200 or more Afghans who were similarly killed.
White privilege also emboldens Western journalists to believe they have a right to an immediate visa to any country where they want to cover a story and embarrass a government. Any hesitation or refusal by a country to issue one without delay and embracing arms elicits a concerted attack by all Western media about cover-ups, human rights violations, and dirty tricks. But you would not even know if an Indian, Chinese, or African journalist was not allowed into the US, UK, or Germany – it is simply not news.
The global publishing market, which has its own significant problems with global White privilege also deserves a mention.
Every airport bookstore – perhaps the closest thing we have that reflects the book consumption tastes of the “international” audience – features the same books, primarily from Western authors. Non-Western topics, if they are covered at all, are usually written by non-Western authors.
Anyone looking for a non-Western perspective would likely be unfulfilled by what they find. The same could be said for someone poring through the standard best-seller list or the most prominent book reviews.
The reason is structural: the channels for getting published – going to the right creative writing programs, having the right agent, getting the right meeting with a publisher – are all easier to navigate for Westerners, and specifically White Westerners, than for anyone else.
Coverage of books is also oriented toward Western and White authors.
Thinking of ways to resolve these structural problems is admittedly hard. Concentration of power and influence is an unhappy by-product of an industry where an increasing number of consumers are interested in or are being channeled toward fewer and fewer sources of information. This sadly reflects a world where the wealth of non-Western knowledge and perspectives goes unrecognised and unpublished.
There are primarily two paths that can be followed in dismantling global White privilege in the media sphere.
The first is to encourage Western media outlets to become truly global in their operations. But this is highly unlikely given the deep rooted sense of racial superiority that is deep-rooted even in the so-called liberal media and the increasing divide between the West and the rest which has now put the Western media on a defensive footing.
The second is to encourage the growth of entirely non-Western media outlets, which would report on global news from a non-Western perspective. This will lead to a more vibrant debate on global issues and broader and deeper reporting of non-Western topics and perspectives. Asia must give birth to its own group of international media groups and publishers. It is time Asian investors started to look into this market seriously or continue to accept the bias that has now become so prevalent in Western media and endure the costs of such media manipulations.
Asia does not have independent media groups with truly global influence. There is no international commercial publisher either focused on the Asia market as a whole. Such a publisher would not just sell Western books to Asian readers, or sell Asian books to Westerners, but would also sell Asian books to Asian readers to knit together a truly “pan-Asian” reading audience.
A couple of large English-language media groups and publishers in Asia would also be able to challenge the reporting biases of Western media and retailers unwilling to showcase Asian writers.
More prominent Asian voices in media and publishing could only be a good thing. The region needs role models as its people develop new businesses, public policies and systems of government. It needs insights based on local research by its own writers, academics, business leaders, researchers and historians. Imagine how illuminating a “rewriting” of the region’s history as seen through the eyes of Asians could be?
An international-standard publisher based out of Asia would need to do three things.
First, it must market and sell directly to Asian populations. Second, it would need to search for new and insightful Asian works, in English and other languages, and present them to a global audience.
Finally, it would need to act as the middleman between Asian authors and Asian readers. Asian authors would no longer need to define success as “making it big” in the West (which inevitably leads to a form of literature which panders to Western tastes), as they could succeed with Asian customers.
The end result of either of these two paths is to build a non-Western media sphere that is treated seriously by the global elite. When a news network based in India or a newspaper based in Nigeria or Hong Kong can be held in the same high regard as The New York Times or the Financial Times, we will know that we have succeeded in eradicating global White privilege in the media.
