Reporting on Mass Graves: A Practitioners Guide
The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) recently launched a journalism resource titled “Reporting on Mass Graves: A Practitioners Guide” to support journalists who wish to professionally report on mass graves.
The product release was part of an event organized to mark CIR’s sixth anniversary and preceded an expert discussion, “Frontlines of Truth: Reporting in Times of Crisis,” held on January 30 at the Sri Lanka Press Institute(SLPI).
Launching the practitioners guide, Dilrukshi Handunnetti, CIR’s co-founder and trustee, said: “The resource was developed from the experiences drawn from an ongoing investigative journalism project and also as a response to the kind of reporting we witnessed in recent months around Chemmani, which require some review, ranging from interview techniques to photography to focusing on victims and survivors.
Reporting on or investigating mass graves is not a matter of counting bodies. It is about how we, the journalists, report with care, respecting the dignity of both the living and the dead, avoiding false hope, ensuring context and honest accounts. It is not a moment to turn such tragedies and human rights violations into influencer or Insta moments. That is an inhuman way to report on something as sensitive as a mass grave.
Senior journalist Niresh Eliatamby who actively covered the Chemmani mass graves in 1995-1996 is the author of vital resource.
Every mass grave contains stories, secrets that are buried in the sands of time. Each is connected with people who are dead as well as living. It is the duty of journalists to report on or investigate mass graves in a responsible and consistent manner.
The resource has several sections and offers a classification of mass graves, principles of a journalist’s duty to report and do no harm, accuracy and verification, ethical and safety considerations, legal aspects, research methodologies, reporting techniques, using technology for investigative reporting and centering victims and survivors.
The resource is produced with the hope that it contributes professional reporting on Sri Lanka’s mass graves in adherence to global best practices. ”
