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 THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO
JOURNALISM IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Responding to mounting calls to decenter and decolonize journalism, The Routledge

­Companion to Journalism in the Global South examines not only the deep-seated challenges
associated with the historical imposition of Western journalism standards on constituencies
of the Global South but also the opportunities presented to journalists and journalism
­educators if they choose to partake in international collaboration and education.
This collection returns to fundamental questions around the meaning, value, and practices
of journalism from alternative methodological, theoretical, and epistemological perspectives.
These questions include: What really is journalism? Who gets to, and who is qualified to,
define it? What role do ethics play? What are the current trends, challenges, and opportunities
for journalism in the Global South? How is news covered, reported, written, and edited in
non-Western settings? What can journalism players living and working in industrialized
markets learn from their non-Western colleagues and counterparts, and vice versa?
Contributors challenge accepted “universal” ethical standards while showing the relevance
of customs, traditions, and cultures in defining and shaping local and regional journalism.
Showcasing some of the most important research on journalism in the Global South and by
journalists based in the Global South, this companion is key reading for anyone researching
the principles and practices of journalism from a de-essentialized perspective.

Bruce Mutsvairo is Professor and Chair of Media, Politics, and the Global South at Utrecht
University, The Netherlands, where he doubles as UNESCO Chair in Data, Disinformation
and Democracy. A former journalist with the Associated Press, he has published numerous
scholarly books exploring the development of journalism in non-Western societies.

Saba Bebawi is Professor and Head of Discipline for Journalism and Writing in the School
of Communication at UTS. She has published on media power and the role of media in
democracy-building, in addition to investigative journalism in conflict and post-conflict regions.

Eddy Borges-Rey is Associate Professor at Northwestern University in Qatar. His area

of academic expertise is digital journalism and emerging media, and his research looks at
the interplay between media, technology, and power, particularly around issues in data
journalism, critical data, code and algorithm studies, artificial intelligence and automation,
mobile journalism, photojournalism, and data and media literacy. Prior to obtaining an MA
and PhD in media and communication, Borges-Rey worked as a broadcast journalist, media
producer, and PR practitioner for almost 15 years.
 THE ROUTLEDGE
COMPANION TO
JOURNALISM IN THE
GLOBAL SOUTH

Edited by Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi

and Eddy Borges-Rey
 Designed cover image: akinbostanci/iStock via Getty Images
First published 2024
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi and
Eddy Borges-Rey individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi and Eddy Borges-Rey to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mutsvairo, Bruce, 1979–editor. | Bebawi, Saba, 1974–editor. |
Borges-Rey, Eddy, 1976–editor.
Title: The Routledge companion to journalism in the Global South / edited
by Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi and Eddy Borges-Rey.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023011015 (print) | LCCN 2023011016 (ebook) |
Subjects: LCSH: Journalism—Developing countries.
Classification: LCC PN5648 .R68 2023 (print) | LCC PN5648 (ebook) |
DDC 079/.1724—dc23/eng/20230622
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023011015
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023011016
ISBN: 978-1-032-28706-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-28707-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-29814-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144
Typeset in Galliard
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
 CONTENTS

List of Figures x
List of Tables xi
List of Contributors xii

1 Regionalizing Journalism 1
Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

PART I
Theorizing Journalism in the Global South 11

2 What Defines Journalism in/from the Global South?: Insights

from Latin America 13
Silvio Waisbord and Adriana Amado

3 Terrorist Journalism in the Middle East 24

Ahmed Al-Rawi

4 Poverty News in Latin America: Too Much to See but Too Little
and Too Polarized to Say 35
Jairo Lugo-Ocando

5 Theorizing Indigenous-Language Journalism in Africa 46

Abiodun Salawu

6 Rethinking African Journalism Cultures in the Context

of Global Professional Interdependences 56
Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara

v
 Contents

7 The Political Economy of the Xenophobic Lens: Reporting

African Migrants on South African Television News 68
Last Moyo and Allen Munoriyarwa

8 Retheorizing African Digital Journalism in the 21st Century 89

Allen Munoriyarwa and Dumisani Moyo

9 The Challenge of Competing Loyalties for Journalists in

Non-Western Cultures 99
Terje Skjerdal

PART II
Pedagogical Paradigms 109

10 Deliberation as Pedagogy: Gender, Intersectionality,

and Journalism Education in India 111
Preeti Raghunath

11 Challenges and Opportunities at Decolonizing the Curriculum:

Narratives from Selected Southern African Journalism
and Media Schools 121
Shepherd Mpofu and Trust Matsilele

12 Journalism Education in Pakistan: Key Gaps in Curriculum

Development133
Sadia Jamil and Kriti Bhuju

13 The Promises and Limitations of Journalism Education

in Ethiopia 144
Téwodros Workneh

14 Piecemeal Pedagogies: Reflecting on the Nature, Context,

and Impact of Journalism Training and Education in Malawi
and Zambia 154
Suzanne Temwa Gondwe Harris, Chanda Mfula,
and Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu

15 Teaching Investigative Journalism in a Transnational

University in China 166
Diana Garrisi and Jiahui Huang

vi
 Contents

PART III
Diversity of Journalism Practices 177

16 Constraints on Journalistic Practices in the Arab World

Post–Arab Spring and Post-Covid-19 179
Sahar Khamis

17 News Journalism as a Civil Norm Builder in

Post-Conflict Settings: The Example of the Daily Nation
and The Standard News Reporting after the Kenyan Election
Violence, 2007/2008 189
Stefanie Pukallus and Gemma Horton

18 Journalism 2.0, News Practices, and Culture in Nigeria:

A Critical Examination of Nigerian Television Authority
and Nigeria Info FM 198
Ufuoma Akpojivi

19 Extractivism and Its Discontents: Al Jazeera English’s Coverage

of Latin America 209
Marcela Pizarro Coloma

20 Cracks in the Wall: Alternative Journalism in Turkey 220

Bora Ataman and Barış Çoban

21 Contemporary Indian Journalism: Digital Response

to Traditional Challenges 230
Uma Shankar Pandey

22 The Day When Maids Went to Disney: Journalism and

Neoliberalism in Brazil 240
José Cláudio Siqueira Castanheira, Melina Aparecida dos
Santos Silva, and Afonso de Albuquerque

23 Contemporary Critiques of Nigerian Journalism 251

Adeyanju Apejoye

24 Reporting the MENA as Conflict: Political Influences, Routine

Practices, and Journalists’ Struggles in the Field 260
Claudia Kozman

vii
 Contents

25 Capitalizing the Social Media: Exploring Branding of Indonesian

Journalists on Instagram 269
Indra Prawira and Regita Anggraini Ekaputri

PART IV
Platforms for Collaboration with the Global North 279

26 Journalism as a Springboard for Collaboration between Scholars in

the Global North and South 281
Summer Harlow and Ingrid Bachmann

27 Collaboration in Journalist Education: Finding Multiple Perspectives

through Global Journalism and Local Practices 291
Kristin Skare Orgeret

28 Ethnic Journalism in Russia: Theoretical Approaches for Potential

Global Collaboration 300
Anna Gladkova and Elena Vartanova

29 The Challenge of Disinformation in the Portuguese-Speaking

African Countries’ Journalism 310
Susana Salgado and Nuno Andrade Ferreira

30 Central and Eastern Europe in Journalism Studies: The Three-Faced

Disadvantage of Underrepresentation, Isolation, and Westernization 320
Gergő Háló and Márton Demeter

31 Ontologies of Journalism: Conceptualizing Objectivity and

Emotions in India and the United Kingdom 333
Antje Glück

32 Diaspora Journalism as a Platform for Collaboration between

the North and the South 344
Ola Ogunyemi

PART V
Ethical and Other Emerging Journalism Critiques 355

33 Storytelling in the Age of Data: Data Journalism in Hong Kong 357

Roselyn Du

viii
 Contents

34 Media Capture: The Conceptual Challenges for Studying Journalism

in Transitional Democracies 368
Mireya Márquez-Ramírez

35 Women Journalists in Mexico: They Will Not Silence Our Voices 378
Yennué Zárate Valderrama

36 Unveiling the Master Signifier in Media Ethics Transgressions in

South Africa 388
Glenda Daniels

37 De-Westernizing Photojournalism: From Photojournalism of the

Global South to Photojournalism in the Global South 399
Saumava Mitra and Brenda Witherspoon

38 Evolving Journalism Practices in the Global South: Convergence,

Continuities, and Disjuncture 409
Cleophas Taurai Muneri

39 Climate Change Journalism in Pakistan: Ethical Deliberations 419

Muhammad Ittefaq, Shafiq Ahmad Kamboh, and Ayesha Ashfaq

40 Journalism in Muslim Societies: Alternative Theories and Practices

of Fairness and Justice 430
Muhammed Musa and Sameera Ahmed

41 Conceptual Critiques to African Journalism 445

Levi Obonyo

42 Journalism in Cameroon: A High-Risk and Dangerous Profession? 461

Peter Tiako Ngangum

Index477

ix
 FIGURES

30.1 Co-authorship network of CEE scholars 329

33.1 Word cloud of assessment of data journalism education 362

x
 TABLES

4.1 El Nacional coverage of poverty, 2010, 2015, and 2021 41

7.1 Trends in Reporting Migrants in eNCA and SABC TV News 71
7.2 Frames and Semantic Cues in Both The Business Day and
The Sunday Times75
7.3 Trends in Reporting Migrants in eNCA and SABC TV News 80
7.4 The Migrant Frame Analysis Matrix Table 82
9.1 Perceived Influences in News Work, Northern vs. Southern Countries 103
25.1 The Selected Ten Indonesian News Presenters 273
25.2 Indonesian Journalistic Branding 274
30.1 Publication Share of the Top 10 Countries in the Selected
Journalism Journals 326
30.2 World Region’s Publication Share in the Selected Journalism Journals 327
30.3 CEE Countries’ Share in the Selected Journalism Journals 327
30.4 CEE Countries’ Share in the Editorial Boards in the Selected Journalism
Journals328
30.5 The Three-Faced Disadvantage of Underrepresentation, Isolation,
and Westernization329
33.1 Profiles of Interviewees 361
33.2 Role of Data in Professional Identity 363
40.1 Comparison of Journalistic Values 440

xi
 CONTRIBUTORS

Sameera T Ahmed is an associate professor in the Media and Creative Industries Depart-
ment at United Arab Emirates University, where she teaches undergraduate and postgradu-
ate courses in journalism and communication. She obtained her doctorate from CMCR,
Leicester University, and has worked at universities in the UK and the Gulf (Oman and
UAE). Her current research areas include news literacy and minority representations.

Ufuoma Akpojivi, PhD (Leeds), is the Policy, Research and Learning Lead at Advocates for
International Development, United Kingdom. Prior to this, he was an Associate Professor at
the Media Studies Department, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and a Visiting
Professor at the School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic University, Nigeria. He
has over 16 years of professional and exceptional teaching and research experience in media
and communications.

Afonso de Albuquerque is a full professor at the communication program, Fluminense

Federal University. His research interests include political communication and journalism
studies.

Ahmed Al-Rawi started his career in 2002 by serving as a communication officer for the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Iraq. He later served as a senior com-
munication officer and spokesperson, which involved addressing local and international
media. Before being a spokesperson for the ICRC, he worked in 2003–2004 as a freelance
radio correspondent for Pacifica Radio Network and Free Speech Radio News, based in the
USA, during which he produced many reports and features. He also served as a freelance
journalist for CNN Arabic Bureau in Dubai, during which he produced a few news reports
on Iraq. Al-Rawi has obtained two PhDs, the first one in English literature, from Baghdad
University, Iraq, in 2004, and the second PhD in media and communication research from
Leicester University, the UK, in 2012. He taught at various academic institutions for over a
decade and a half in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Al-Rawi served, for exam-
ple, as an assistant professor of communication studies at Erasmus University in the Nether-
lands (2011–2014) and at Concordia University in Canada (2015–2018). Ahmed Al-Rawi

xii
 Contributors

is currently an associate professor of news, social media, and public communication at the
School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, Canada. Al-Rawi is the director of the
Disinformation Project that empirically examines fake news discourses in Canada on social
media and news media. His research expertise is related to social media, global communica-
tion, news, with emphasis on Canada and the Middle East. He authored 5 books and over
115 peer-reviewed book chapters and articles published in a variety of academic journals.

Adriana Amado is a professor in the School of Communications and Humanities at the

University Camilo José Cela, Spain. She has researched and published extensively about
media, journalism, and public communication. She has been part of Worlds of Journalism
Study since 2012 as the principal researcher of the Argentina chapter. She is also a journalist
and civic volunteer in Latin American NGOs. Her latest book is Las metáforas del periodismo
[The metaphors of journalism] (2021). She holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from FLACSO
and is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Salamanca.

Nuno Andrade Ferreira is a PhD candidate in global studies at Universidade Aberta (Por-
tugal), with a master’s degree in European studies (UAb) and a degree in political science
(ISCSP/UL). He is a research fellow at the Center for Global Studies, in the areas of human
rights, multilateralism, media representations, and disinformation. Nuno lives in Cabo Verde,
collaborating regularly with Universidade do Mindelo. He has been working as a journalist
for over 20 years.

Regita Anggraini Ekaputri has a bachelor of arts in advertising from the University of Can-
berra, Australia, 2019. Regita was also awarded a bachelor’s degree in communications from
BINUS University in 2020, in her home country, Indonesia.

Adeyanju Apejoye is a senior lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Plateau

State University, Bokkos, Nigeria. His research focuses on journalism, digital media, media
development and the nexus between political communication and democracy, especially in
the Global South. He received a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies from the University of
Salford, United Kingdom.

Ayesha Ashfaq is an associate professor in the Department of Development Communica-

tion, University of the Punjab, Pakistan. She has recently completed her post-doctorate from
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University,
USA. She holds her bachelor’s degree in mass communication, MPhil in media and com-
munication studies and PhD in communication studies. For her distinguished work, she
has got more than 40 research articles published in national and international journals and
book chapters. She has won several national research grants and has presented her researches
in several national and international conferences held in USA, Norway, Malaysia, Indone-
sia, and Pakistan. Her research background is in development communication, gender and
minorities, environment and climate change journalism, political communication and public
policy, and digital media.

Bora Ataman is a professor of communication sciences at the Arts and Sciences Faculty,
Doğuş University. His undergraduate and graduate degrees are from Marmara University.
He also holds an MSc degree in communication, media, and development from London

xiii
 Contributors

School of Economics. He is currently studying topics such as activist citizen journalism,

media activism and counter-surveillance, and journalism safety. He has published in prestig-
ious academic journals and presented at international conferences.

Ingrid Bachmann is an associate professor and the director of the School of Journalism
at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She was a former reporter, and her research inter-
ests include gender, political communication, and language. She primarily focuses on the role
of the news media in the definition of identities and meanings within the public sphere. Her
research has been published in Communication Research, Feminist Media Studies, Interna-
tional Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal-
ism Studies, and Women’s Studies in Communication, among other journals. Currently, she
serves as chair of the Feminist Scholarship Division of the International Communication
Association.

Kriti Bhuju has completed her PhD from Communication University of China. She is cur-
rently working as a communication consultant. Her research interests include development
communication, gender, media studies, and media literacy.

José Cláudio Siqueira Castanheira is an associate professor at the Communication

­ epartment at Fluminense Federal University (UFF) and a collaborating professor at the
D
post-graduation program in communication at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). He
is the leader of the research group GEIST (Group of Studies in Images, Sonorities and
Technologies)-CNPq. His research interests include technologies, digital culture, music,
sound studies, and cinema.

Barış Çoban is a professor in the Communication Sciences Department, Doğuş University,

Turkey. His research interests include alternative media, alternative journalism, surveillance
and safety of journalists. He edited the book Social Media and Social Movements (2015)
and co-edited the books Alternative Media in Turkey (2015), Panopticon 2.0: Alterna-
tive Media and Counter-Surveillance (2018), and co-authored research articles: ‘The Gezi
Resistance and Activist Citizen Reporters’ (2017); ‘How safe is it? Being an Activist Citizen
Journalist in Turkey’ published in an edited book titled The Assault on Journalism (2017);
‘Counter-surveillance and alternative new media in Turkey’ (2018); ‘Turkey: How to deal
with threats to journalism’ published in an edited book titled Transnational Othering –
Global Diversities: Media, extremism and free expression (2019) and ‘A Review on the Safety
of Journalists in Turkey: A Victims’ Rights Perspective’ in published in an edited book
titled Handbook of Research on Combating Threats to Media Freedom and Journalist Safety
(2020). Çoban was co-editor of New Journalism - Mediums, Experiences, Opportunities
(2020) and Handbook of Research on Discrimination, Gender Disparity, and Safety Risks in
Journalism (2021).

Glenda Daniels is an associate professor in the Media Studies Department at the University
of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has a PhD in political science (Wits
University) and is a media freedom and diversity activist. Daniels is a rated scholar with the
National Research Foundation (NRF). She is the South African National Editors’ Forum’s
(SANEF) Gauteng convenor, served on the executive of the South African Communica-
tion Association (SACOMM) till 2021, and is on the board of the Press Council of South

xiv
 Contributors

Africa. She is also an editorial advisory board member at journalism studies (London). She
was a journalist in the print media industry for over two decades. Her research interests are
media, politics and diversity, state of the newsroom, democracy theory, the role of the media
in a democracy, freedom of expression, and cyber-misogyny. Daniels is the author of the
books Power and Loss in South African Journalism: News in the Age of Social Media (2020)
and Fight for Democracy: The ANC and Media in South Africa (2012), co-author of Glass
Ceilings: Women in South African media Houses (2018), and co-editor of the book Women
Journalists in South Africa: Democracy in the Age of Social Media (2022). She is also a Media
Matters columnist at Daily Maverick.

Márton Demeter is a scholar of communications studies based in Hungary. Following

countless initial rejections from international journals due to his own peripheral position, in
the last few years, he published dozens of articles in top journals of his field, and he became
one of the most accomplished researchers in communication studies internationally accord-
ing to SciVal, Elsevier’s worldwide database of scientific performance. Together with János
Tóth, he is the founder of KOME, an international communication studies journal that
gradually reached Q1 rating in the past 10 years, thanks to their deliberate strategy to build
up a journal through inviting well-known international scholars as authors and editorial
board members at the beginning. Although several Western publishers have been interested
in buying the journal, they are committed to keeping it in the region to provide international
visibility to scholars outside of the centers. Demeter is also an editorial board member of sev-
eral prestigious journals, and as the board member of Journalism and Mass Communication
Quarterly, he recently edited a special issue on Eastern European scholarship in communica-
tion studies and has edited another special issue, which came out in 2022.

Melina Aparecida dos Santos Silva is a postdoctoral fellow at the Culture and Territoriali-
ties Graduate Program–Institute of Arts and Communication (UFF), and holds a PhD in
communications from Fluminense Federal University. She has published in refereed journals,
such Journal of Black Studies, Journal of European Cultural Studies, and has chapters in
the books Live Looping in Musical Performance–Lusophone Experiences in Dialogue and
­Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South. Her research interests include issues
such as music genre, media studies, decoloniality, intersectionality, African and diasporic
­cultural production, technology, and cultural studies.

Roselyn Du is currently based at California State University–Fullerton. She received her

PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was awarded a pres-
tigious University Fellowship as well as the Future Faculty Fellowship. Her areas of interest
include global media, data journalism, audience analysis, political communication and pub-
lic opinion, and media credibility. Her research has resulted in multiple international and
national top paper awards. She has published widely in refereed journals, such as Journal-
ism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Inter-
national Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, and Asia
Pacific Media Educator, as well as in well-recognized edited volumes upon invitation. She
was a visiting scholar at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in
2017. Dr. Du also spearheaded the Data and News Society, a multidisciplinary community
of practice initiated in Hong Kong since 2015. In a previous life, she was an award-winning
frontline journalist in China.

xv
 Contributors

Diana Garrisi is a lecturer in journalism at the School of Journalism, Media, and Cul-
ture, Cardiff University. Her research interests include 19th-century press history, journalism
education in transnational contexts, feature writing theory and practice, body image and
the media, and non-violent communication. Prior to her appointment at Cardiff Univer-
sity, she worked in China for over four years as an assistant professor in journalism in the
Sino-British joint venture Xi’an Jiaotong–Liverpool University. She has published in different
peer-reviewed journals, including Journalism Studies, Media Practice and Education, Public
Understanding of Science, the Journal of Science Communication, and Early Popular Vis-
ual Culture. Alongside Jacob Johanssen, she edited Disability and the Media: Other Bod-
ies (2020), which won the Choice “Outstanding Academic Title” Award. With Xianwen
Kuang, she is co-editor of Journalism Pedagogy in Transitional Countries (2022).

Anna Gladkova is the leading researcher and deputy dean of the International Affairs Office
at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. She is the co-chair of
IAMCR’s Digital Divide Working Group, the IAMCR ambassador in Russia, and a mem-
ber of the IAMCR International Council. Anna Gladkova has published and edited collec-
tions on ethnic media, multicultural affairs, digital inequalities, and digital divides. Her most
recent books include Digital Inequalities in the Global South (2020), co-edited with Massimo
Ragnedda, and Ethnic Journalism in the Global South (2021), co-edited with Sadia Jamil.

Antje Glück is a lecturer in multimedia journalism at Bourneouth University. She teaches on

the BA (hons) and MA courses for journalism and digital media. She holds a PhD from the
University of Leeds and a double MA in journalism and Arabic studies from the University of
Leipzig in Germany. Her studies led her to spend time abroad in Egypt, Spain, and France.
She has also worked as a freelance journalist since 1998 for various print, radio, and television
media in Germany, France, Egypt, and India.

Suzanne Temwa Gondwe Harris is a fellow at LSE in the Department of Media and
­ ommunications where she teaches critical approaches to media, communications and develop-
C
ment, and humanitarian communications. She has spent more than 10 years working in media
and human rights in Africa, Asia, and South America, and her research interests are centered on
the intersectional and historical links between media, race, coloniality, and international devel-
opment. Her latest research is focusing on interrogating NGOs involvement in systems of racial
capitalism and the neoliberal logic of commodifying and monetizing Black bodies.

Gergő Háló is an assistant professor at the University of Public Service in Hungary.

Summer Harlow is an associate professor of journalism at Texas A&M University. She a PhD
in journalism and an MA in Latin American studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Her research examines the intersections of journalism, activism, and emerging technologies,
particularly in Latin America and the United States. A former journalist, she is the author
of Digital Native News and the Remaking of Latin American Mainstream and Alternative
Journalism (2023), as well as Liberation Technology in El Salvador: Re-appropriating Social
Media among Alternative Media Projects (2017), which won the 2018 AEJMC-Knudson
Latin America Book Prize. Her research has appeared in top peer-reviewed journals including

xvi
 Contributors

the Journal of Communication; International Journal of Press/Politics; Journalism & Mass

Communication Quarterly; Digital Journalism; New Media & Society; and Mass Commu-
nication & Society. She is the former head of the International Communication Division of
the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Currently she is the
Book Reviews Editor for the International Journal of Press/Politics.

Gemma Horton is the Impact Fellow for the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM)
at the School of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Sheffield. She started
the position in September 2022. She is also the Assistant Editor for the European Journal
of Communication. From 2019-2022, she was a University Teacher in the Department of
Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool where she taught on a range of
topics including media freedom and human rights. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education
Academy (FHEA). She gained her PhD from the Department of Journalism Studies at the
University of Sheffield in January 2020. Prior to that, she graduated with an MA in Magazine
Journalism at the University of Sheffield in 2017 and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the
University of York in 2015.

Jiahui Huang is a postgraduate fellow at Columbia Journalism School. She’s also a bilingual
journalist who has reported in the U.S., the United Kingdom and China. She started her
career in her native China covering foreign affairs, technology, business and social justice
for The Guardian and Reuters. In 2022, she graduated with honors from the M.S. Stabile
investigative-reporting program at Columbia Journalism School. She graduated from the
University of Liverpool with a BA in communication studies in 2020. Her most recent sto-
ries have focused on migration, climate change and gender. Reporting in New York, she has
investigated the invisible victims of Hurricane Ida and covered undocumented workers. She
has also written for Eurasianet about issues in Central Asia and China.

Muhammad Ittefaq is an sssistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at

James Madison University, USA. Ittefaq received his PhD in journalism and mass commu-
nications from the University of Kansas; his MA in media and communication science from
Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany; and his MSc in communication studies from
University of the Punjab, Pakistan. His research delves into the ways in which people con-
sume and interact with information through new technologies, including how they interpret
scientific messages, make decisions related to climate and health, and support policies related
to science. He investigates how different segments of society are influenced by the infor-
mation ecosystems and messages surrounding scientific issues, while also examining how
organizations use various persuasive techniques on mainstream and social media to engage
with global science-related topics. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles
and book chapters. His work has been published in a variety of academic journals, including
the International Journal of Communication, Journal of Health Communication, Journal of
Science Communication, Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, Journalism Practice, Jour-
nal of Media Ethics, Media International Australia, Convergence: The International Jour-
nal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vaccine, Digital Health, Psychology & Health,
Third World Quarterly, Local Environment, Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, among
others.

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 Contributors

Sadia Jamil is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Univer-
sity of Nottingham, Ningbo, China. She has earned a PhD in journalism (Australia) and two
postgraduate degrees in media management (Scotland) and mass communication (Karachi).

Shafiq Ahmad Kamboh is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Studies

at University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He has completed his PhD in development
communication from the Centre for Media, Communication, and Information Research
(ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen, Germany. His research focuses on development com-
munication, climate and environmental justice, health communication, science journalism,
and the Global South. His recent work has been published in the Journal of Media Ethics,
Development Policy Review, American Journal of Health Education, Third World Quarterly,
International Journal of Communication, Local Environment, Death Studies, Psychology &
Health, Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, among others. He has worked on sev-
eral research projects funded by local chapters of international development organisations in
Pakistan including UNESCO, WHO, and Micronutrient Initiative (MI).

Sahar Khamis is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the Uni-

versity of Maryland, College Park. She is an expert on Arab and Muslim media and is the
former head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department in Qatar
University. Dr. Khamis holds a PhD in mass media and cultural studies from the University of
Manchester in England. She is a former Mellon Islamic Studies Initiative visiting professor at
the University of Chicago. She is the co-author of the books Islam Dot Com: Contemporary
Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace (2009) and Egyptian Revolution 2.0: Political Blogging, Civic
Engagement and Citizen Journalism (2013) and the co-editor of the book Arab Women’s
Activism and Socio-Political Transformation: Unfinished Gendered Revolutions (2018).

Claudia Kozman, PhD (Indiana University), is an assistant professor in residence in journal-

ism at Northwestern University in Qatar. Her research primarily focuses on news content,
with particular attention to news values, sourcing, and framing in Arab media. She is inter-
ested in media coverage of conflict in the Middle East as well as public opinion and percep-
tions during political turmoil. She has published numerous empirical research studies about
media and conflict in the Middle East and contributed to books about comparative media
systems in the region.

Jairo Lugo-Ocando, PhD (Sussex), is a professor and the dean of the College of Commu-
nication at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Previously, he worked at
Northwestern University in Qatar and the University of Leeds and the University of Shef-
field, both in the United Kingdom. He has researched and published extensively about media
representations and news reporting of poverty and inequality. Before becoming an academic,
he worked as a reporter and news editor for several media outlets in Latin America and the
United States.

Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara, PhD, is a senior lecturer in Media, Communication and

International Journalism at the University of Glasgow, UK, where he is affiliated to the
Glasgow University Media Group. He is Associate Editor of the journals, Journalism Stud-
ies and African Journalism Studies and a Senior Research Associate at the University of

xviii
 Contributors

Johannesburg, South Africa. Mabweazara is co-author of Participatory Journalism in Africa

and editor of Newsmaking Cultures in Africa and Media Capture in Africa & Latin America.

Chikumbutso Herbert Manthalu, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the Higher Education and
Professional Development Department, School of Education, at the University of Malawi.
His research focuses on education and democracy, decoloniality and decolonization, educa-
tion for global and local citizenship, political and African philosophy. His latest co-edited
book, Education, Communication and Democracy in Africa: A Democratic Pedagogy for the
Future – Perspectives on Education in Africa, takes a multidisciplinary approach to under-
standing democratic citizenship education, policymaking, institutional culture, and peda-
gogical experiences in African educational domains.

Mireya Márquez-Ramírez is an associate professor of journalism studies and media theory,

Department of Communications, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. She holds a PhD
in media and communications (Goldsmiths, University of London) and an MA in journalism
studies (Cardiff University). Her interests include comparative media systems and journalism
cultures, journalistic roles, anti-press violence, and sports journalism. She currently investi-
gates mobile journalists and the newsroom-less, collaborative nature of journalistic work.

Trust Matsilele is a senior lecturer in Journalism at Birmingham City University, UK, and a
fellow of CPUT’s Centre for Communication Studies. He has published extensively in peer-
reviewed edited books and journals. His research cuts across disciplines, such as social media,
protest cultures, journalism, and education. He is also a former senior journalist with Forbes
Africa magazine and CNBC Africa and is regularly featured as a political analyst and social
commentator in the media.

Chanda Mfula is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research and academic work traverses
the fields of (digital) media, journalism, political communication, political economy, poli-
tics, and African studies, among others. Combining both industry and academic experience,
Chanda worked at the University of Sussex as lecturer in human geography after complet-
ing his PhD there, and is currently engaged at the University of Hertfordshire as lecturer in
media, communications and culture.

Saumava Mitra is based at Dublin City University, where he investigates how production
processes and narratives in conflict and crises visuals influence each other. His most recent
research focused on the working conditions of women photographers from conflict-affected
contexts in the Global South. His previous research was on the working conditions and
images of Afghan photographers who work for international organizations. Prior to joining
DCU, Mitra lived and worked in academia, in journalism, and in communications in South
Asia, East Africa, North and Central Americas, and Europe.

Dumisani Moyo is currently executive dean of the Faculty of Humanities at North West
University, SA. He holds a PhD in media and communication studies from the Univer-
sity of Oslo (2006). His research interests include media policy and regulation, and new
media, politics, culture and technology in Africa, and he has published widely in these
areas. His major works include four co-edited books: Radio in Africa: Publics, Cultures,

xix
 Contributors

Communities (2011); Media Policy in a Changing Southern Africa: Critical Reflections on

Media Reforms in the Global Age (2010); Mediating Xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking Dis-
courses of Migration, Belonging and Othering (2020); and Re-imagining Communication in
Africa and the Caribbean: Global South Issues in Media, Culture and Technology (2021).

Last Moyo is an associate professor in media and communication studies at Xi’an Jiaotong-
Liverpool University (XJTLU). He has lectured at several other universities in Africa and Asia,
including a stint at the University of Wales (UK), where he attained his PhD in media studies.
He is published extensively in top reputable international peer-reviewed journals, including
Journalism Studies, Telematic and Informatics, International Communication Gazette, and
Journal of International Communication, among several others. His most recent book is The
Decolonial Turn in Media Studies in Africa and the Global South (2020).

Shepherd Mpofu is an associate professor in media at the University of South Africa. He

is an African Humanities Program fellow. He is the co-editor of Mediating Xenophobia in
Africa (2020). He regularly publishes in academic journals on themes such as media and
identity, media and protests, gender and race.

Cleophas Taurai Muneri is a senior lecturer in the Department of Communication and

Journalism at the University of New Mexico where he teaches media and communication
courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. He has also held media and journalism
teaching positions in Zimbabwe, at the National University of Science and Technology and
Midlands State University. Muneri combines his background in media and journalism to
broaden his research to explore how media constitute and reconstitute cultural identities
in the struggle for democracy. His research interests and area of expertise center on media,
communication, and democratization.

Allen Munoriyarwa is a senior lecturer in the Department of Media Studies at the Uni-
versity of Botswana. His research interests are in digital surveillance. He is currently coor-
dinating research exploring the growth of digital surveillance practices in Southern Africa
under the auspices of the Media Policy and Democracy Project (MPDP). This is a Uni-
versity of Johannesburg research project. Munoriyarwa has also written widely on digital
surveillance. Munoriyarwa has researched with organisations like Privacy International on
digital surveillance practices in the region. His publications have appeared in major global
journals including Journalism, Digital Journalism, Journalism Practice, and Security Dia-
logue. Munoriyarwa has led numerous funded research projects, including the impact of
Covid-19 in newsrooms across southern Africa (funded by the Social Science Research
Council), and the impact of artificial intelligence in newsrooms (funded by the University
of Johannesburg Research Council). Munoriyarwa is also a Canon Collins scholar. He has
published more than 40 times on journalism, media, and surveillance practices. His most
recent book is Digital Surveillance in Southern Africa: Policies, Politics and Practices.

Muhammed Musa is an associate professor in the Media and Creative Industries Depart-
ment at United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) and has taught journalism at universities
across the world, including Nigeria, New Zealand, and Zimbabwe.

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 Contributors

Peter Tiako Ngangum is a member of the Centre de Recherche and Information et Com-
munication (ReSIC) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He holds a PhD in infor-
mation and communication sciences from the ULB; an MA in mass communication from the
University of Leicester; an MSc in environmental sciences from the University of Greenwich,
London; and a BA in English from the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon. His areas of
expertise include media law and regulation, media ethics, professionalism, journalism, jour-
nalistic role perception and performance, media and counterterrorism laws, press freedom,
and freedom of expression.

Levi Obonyo is an associate professor of communication and media studies and the dean of
the School of Communication at Daystar University. He started his career as a news corre-
spondent and wrote for magazines before joining academia. A graduate of Messiah College,
Wheaton Graduate School, and Temple University, he has taught media studies at several
institutions. He has also been involved in media regulation and policy formulation in Kenya.
Until recently, he served as the chairman of the Media Council of Kenya.

Olatunji Ogunyemi, PhD, is a Professor of Journalism at the School of Film, Media and
Journalism, University of Lincoln, UK, with research interest in diaspora journalism and jour-
nalism trauma. He is the convener of an international multidisciplinary Journalism Education
and Trauma Research Group (JETREG) and Media of Diaspora Research Group (MDRG).
He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at Bowen University,
Nigeria. Ogunyemi is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College (PRC), ensuring that the
highest quality research proposals receive funding in accordance with robust and transpar-
ent decision-making processes. He is a Senior Academic Mentor in the College of Mentors
at the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), working to
strengthen capacity in teaching, research and mentoring in the social sciences and humani-
ties in African universities. Ogunyemi regularly publishes articles in journals and chapters in
edited books and is the founder/principal editor of an academic journal of Global Diaspora
and Media.

Kristin Skare Orgeret is a professor of journalism at Oslo Met University in Norway. She
conducts research in the field of media and journalism, with a particular focus on media
in conflict, freedom of speech, media’s societal role, and power relations. She worked
with Dr. Art on her dissertation on public service broadcasting in post-apartheid South
Africa. She also headed the research group MEKK – Media in War and Conflict, with
Roy Krøvel. MEKK organizes annual Safety of Journalists conferences every first week in
November.

Marcela Pizarro Coloma is Lecturer in Journalism in the Department of Media, Communi-

cations & Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She worked for 20
years in international broadcast journalism, at the Associated Press then most significantly for
Al Jazeera English where she reported and made films for the global media critique show The
Listening Post. She holds a PhD in Latin American Cultural Studies (University of London).
She is interested in the politics of journalism and culture in the global south, media history
focusing on counter cultural and revolutionary movements in the 20th century.

xxi
 Contributors

Indra Prawira is a lecturer specialist at Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta, Indonesia. He

earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture major at Padjadjaran University in 2001. During his
professional work as a journalist, Indra continued his study in 2011 at Mercubuana Univer-
sity, majoring in media and political communication. He earned a doctoral degree in media
and social science from Northumbria University at Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.
His research interests are journalism, political communication, education, and computational
social science.

Stefanie Pukallus, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Public Communication and Civil Develop-
ment at the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Sheffield
(UK) and founding Chair of Hub for the Study of Hybrid Communication in Peacebuild-
ing (HCPB). Stef’s research focus is the role of public communication in the development,
strengthening, rebuilding, diminishment or destruction of civil society. She examines civil
societies across the globe of both mature and emergent nature. She has written extensively
on the role of news journalism in civil society and the role of public communication in peace
and conflict. Her most recent research monograph ‘Communication in Peacebuilding. Civil
wars, civility and safe spaces’ was published in 2022. Stef has undertaken consultancy for the
United Nations, the European Commission and the European Parliament. She is also a close
collaborator of the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) and has been involved in a
variety of peacebuilding initiatives in Kenya.

Preeti Raghunath is a lecturer in digital media and society at the University of Sheffield,
UK. Her research interests are focused on the making of the global data economy, his-
tories and socialities of datafication, and work in the transnational data industries. She
is the author of Community Radio Policies in South Asia: A Deliberative Policy Ecology
Approach (2020).

Abiodun Salawu is a professor of journalism, communication and media studies and direc-
tor of the research entity, Indigenous Language Media in Africa (ILMA) at the North-West
University, South Africa. He has taught and researched journalism, media, and communi-
cation for close to three decades in Nigeria and South Africa. Prior to his academic career,
he practised journalism in a number of print media organisations in Nigeria. He has to his
credit well over a gross of scholarly publications in academic journals and books. He has also
edited/co-edited eleven books and authored one. He is a regular presenter of papers at local
and international conferences. He is a co-vice chair of the journalism section of International
Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and a member of editorial/
advisory boards of a number of journals. He was involved in the founding of the Interna-
tional Association for Minority Language Media Research. He is rated by the NRF as an
established researcher at the level of C1 (with international recognition) and he is a member
of the Codesria’s College of Senior Academic Mentors.

Susana Salgado (PhD, 2007) is a political communication scholar. Currently Principal

Researcher at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa (ICS-ULisboa),
she was previously FCT research fellow (ICS-ULisboa) and also held positions at the Uni-
versity of Oxford, UK, and at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. The topics of her research
include populism, online hate, polarization, disinformation, political communication, com-
parative media studies, media and democratization, media and elections, and Internet and

xxii
 Contributors

politics. Over the last few years, her comparative research projects have been broad in geo-
graphical scope and include different projects on Europe, but also on Portugal and Brazil,
and an extensive analysis of the role of the media in African democratization processes in
comparative perspective. Salgado has been PI of several funded research projects, such as
“Streams of hate and untruth?” (PTDC/CPO-CPO/28495/2017) and “Politics, Policy,
Populism and Online and Social Media” (IF/01451/2014/CP1239/CT0004).

Uma Shankar Pandey is an associate professor in journalism and mass communication at

Surendranath College for Women, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India. He is the IAMCR
Ambassador in India. Before joining the academia in 2002, he worked as an Asian Age jour-
nalist. His present research areas include data journalism, development journalism, media
credibility studies, risk communication, and news framing.

Terje Skjerdal is a professor of journalism at NLA University College, Kristiansand, Nor-

way. He is a graduate of University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa and University
of Oslo, Norway. He has been engaged in African media development since 2002 and has
coordinated university development projects in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda. His research
focuses on media and democracy in Sub-Saharan African and African journalism identities.
He is an executive committee member and Africa coordinator of the Journalistic Role Per-
formance Project. He is also on the executive committee of the Worlds of Journalism Study.

Elena Vartanova is a full professor, dean, and chair in media theory and economics at the
Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. She is also an academician of
the Russian Academy of Education and the president of the National Association of Mass
Media Researchers (NAMMI). Her research focuses on Russian media system, media eco-
nomics, media theory, journalism education in Russia, digital inequalities, digital capital,
and other topics. Her papers appeared in Journalism, European Journal of Communication,
Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Journal of Multicultural Discourses, and other
journals. Professor Vartanova’s most recent books include Encyclopedia of the Global Media
Industry (2019) and Media System of Russia (2020).

Silvio Waisbord is a professor at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Wash-
ington University, United States. He is the author and editor of 19 books and articles on
journalism, politics, media, and communication. His latest books are Public Scholarship in
Communication Studies (co-edited with TJ Billard), and The Routledge Companion to Media,
Disinformation and Populism (co-edited with Howard Tumber). He served as the editor-
in-chief of the Journal of Communication and International Journal of Press/Politics. He
is President-elect and Fellow of the International Communication Association. He holds a
PhD in sociology from the University of California, San Diego, and a licenciatura in sociol-
ogy from the University of Buenos Aires.

Brenda Witherspoon is a professor at Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication,

Iowa State University, in the United States. She has a background in daily journalism, includ-
ing both reporting and editing. Her master’s research looked at New Zealand newspapers’
coverage of ethnic relations in that country, and she has an ongoing interest in how journal-
ists depict their own and others’ cultures. She is also learning more about strength-based
journalism, which encompasses a variety of emerging schools of thought.

xxiii
 Contributors

Téwodros Workneh is an associate professor of global communication at the School of

Communication Studies, Kent State University. Dr. Workneh’s research projects explore
global media industries and policies through critical political economy and postcolonial
approaches. His most recent research inquiries focus on state-media relations during political
transition in Ethiopia and the imagination of Africa in American culinary adventure reality
television programs.

Yennué Zárate Valderrama is a research fellow at UAM (Universidad Autónoma Metropol-

itana) Xochimilco (Metropolitan Autonomous University), Mexico City. She is researching
on violence, gender, and journalists in Mexico. Yennué holds a doctoral degree in journalism
and mass communication from Communication and Media Research Institute, University of
Westminster, and an MA in sociology, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. She is a
former human rights journalist and directed the press department in Amnesty International
(Mexico) and the Latin American team in Article 19 (London).

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 1
REGIONALIZING JOURNALISM
Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

Academia has entered a period of rational turmoil – an exciting and interesting kind of
turmoil, we must add. As hegemonic concepts, unchallenged until now, are questioned by
scholars in the margins (mostly around issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and others), mount-
ing calls for a diversification of knowledge and a re-orientation of our way of thinking about
journalism practice and scholarship have become more prevalent in recent years. The grow-
ing number of manifestos issued by scholars calling for more inclusive theorizations of jour-
nalism (Zelizer, 2017; Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2021; Glück, 2018; Mohammed, 2021)
is a testimony not only to the deep-seated challenges associated with the historical imposi-
tion of Western journalism standards to the rest of the world but also to the opportunities
that exist if journalists and journalism educators, regardless of their location, choose to col-
laborate and work together to recognize their conceptual and methodological specificities
(Mutsvairo et al., 2020).
The stigmas and stereotypes associated with reporting the Global South have been well
recorded in academic literature (see Nothias, 2018; Lugo-Ocando & Malaolu, 2015; Wil-
lems, 2015; Wright, 2016; McCarthy, 1983; Ogunyemi, 2011; Hippler, 2000). Without a
doubt, the development of journalism in the Global South is one area of research that has
gained ground over the years, with several researchers, particularly those working in the
West but originating from the region, taking front seats in spotlighting this fledgling field
(Ndlela, 2020; Nguyen, 2020; Milton & Kperogi, 2020). Of course, a general acknowledg-
ment that the Global South exhibits non-traditional forms of performing and understanding
journalism has not existed until very recently. Since the establishment of our disciplines in
the early 1900s, scholars from North America and Western Europe have kept tight control
over the field, its research agenda, and the body of knowledge generated from its debates,
largely ignoring dissident voices demanding a wider perspective which included other forms
of journalism. It should not come as a surprise, then, the emergence of scholarly initiatives
critiquing current global models of journalism research.
This book, therefore, is an attempt to provide journalism studies with a more regional
outlook. For as much as we can remember, journalism has been approached as a universal
concept, applicable to any context regardless of its specificity, and any attempt to explore
it from a regional perspective has mostly been defined through, or dominated by, Western

1 DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-1
 Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

paradigms. Within this volume we have gathered a range of well-established academic voices
who aim at challenging – and, hopefully, contributing to efforts to change – this dominant
narrative. Our purpose is to highlight important work that has often, sometimes deliberately,
been ignored and ultimately excluded from Western journalism scholarship, because it has
been either authored by scholars not known to its anchors, or because it used theoretical or
methodological approaches different to those set by the status quo as priorities within the
research agenda.
As access to information becomes more ubiquitous, and as academia must compete with
emerging platforms of knowledge, creating an outlet where conversations about journalism
resonate with audiences different to those based in North America and Western Europe is of
paramount importance. Whilst issues and phenomena that for years have been reported and
researched in the Global South permeate the Global North, widening the research agenda
to include other ways of doing, and thinking about, journalism provides an intergenerational
opportunity we cannot miss.
Sierra Leonean journalists were featured on CNN, explaining to Western audiences what
it takes to cover a pandemic during the Covid-19 nightmares. Their exposure to cover-
ing Ebola could not be ignored by Western journalists, including an experienced caliber of
reporters, who had little or no knowledge of covering pandemics as the world grappled with
Covid-19 in 2020–2021. The importance of collaboration in journalism regardless of loca-
tion has also been highlighted in the Panama Papers and, most recently, the Pandora Papers,
considered one of the most expansive exposés of financial secrecy among the rich and pow-
erful. These cross-border reporting examples underscore the need for inclusive approaches
to journalism, which we seek to facilitate through more equitable empirical and theoretical
reflections.
Indeed, equality is a major issue in journalism practice. In a major international study,
Andi et al. (2020) revealed that only 23% of the leading editors across 200 media organi-
zations were women, even though, on average, 40% of journalists in the ten international
markets that they studied were women. Ross’s (2014) research across 99 major media houses
in the European Union concluded that only 30% of senior or executive positions were occu-
pied by women. In the United States, calls for newsroom diversity emerged from intricate
historical movements that sought to highlight the injustice brought by and eventual protests
against neo-colonialism, “defenders of alternative lifestyles, and upwardly mobile middle-
class professionals” (Benson, 2005, p. 6). Calling it “diversity journalism,” he suggests that
it has achieved notable successes particularly in reshaping the language of race reporting.
Acknowledging progress in the increase of non-White and female faculty and students in
accredited journalism units across the United States, Jones Ross et al. (2007) notes that the
advances fell short of what was needed to achieve diversity in journalism and mass communi-
cation education. However, an increasing multicultural environment, coupled with improve-
ments in accreditation standards, has had a positive effect on diversity education in American
journalism schools, conclude Biswas and Izard (2010).
Attempts to decenter and decolonize journalism studies (and, to a lesser extent, practice)
are not new. Unfortunately, over the years, these attempts have been largely ignored by the
core of our disciplines, which has remained uninterested in nascent regional attempts to
systematically theorize journalism in the Global South. Probably, the clearest indication of
the existence of this Western-centric academic and professional bubble is the pervasive idea
that journalism is in crisis. Should we all accept that we are facing a crisis in journalism simply
because many in the West say so? How globally representative is this journalism crisis? Why

2
 Regionalizing Journalism

should Western norms and business models of journalism be foisted upon other regions of
the world? Is it safe to think that journalism is in crisis in the West because of its overreliance
on a decadent business model which is no longer viable? Does such an observation apply
equally in the rest of the world, where journalism is shaped by other cultural, financial, politi-
cal, and philosophical forces?
As we engage in the study of the ever-changing contemporary news ecosystem, domi-
nated by vast digital inequalities, dis/misinformation, data overabundance, and technocracy,
discussions raised by scholars like Waisbord and Mellado (2014); Wasserman and de Beer
(2009); Curran and Park (2000); and Mutsvairo et al. (2020) re-engage with the questions,
What really is journalism? Who gets to, and is qualified to, define it? What role do ethics play
in a disparate global environment? What are the current trends, challenges, and opportuni-
ties for journalism in the Global South? How is news covered, reported, written, and edited
in non-Western settings? What can journalism players, living and working in industrialized
markets, learn from their non-Western colleagues and counterparts, and vice versa?
Is journalism not defined by context and culture? If so, then setting a global research
agenda on journalism ethics is potentially problematic, especially to those journalists or jour-
nalism educators who live in societies whose ethics are incompatible with Western beliefs
and cultures. How relevant is journalistic objectivity to students living in a totalitarian coun-
try, where objectivity only means praising the president and ruling party? Anything more is
not tolerated. As shown through the work of other journalism scholars (Hanitzsch et al.,
2019; Zelizer, 2005; Deuze, 2002), ethics cannot go unchallenged, particularly in countries
that have experienced radical political, social, ideological, historic, economic, and cultural
influences and shifts. Failure to follow universal journalism standards often comes at a price
because of the global status and recognition that is associated with Western values. This is not
without problems, because one could argue that all journalisms are important in their own
way. The idea of a homogenized universal journalism is at most problematic, as the richness
of local news epistemologies (most of which could be unknown to many Western journalism
followers) highlights the flexibility which can be exhibited by the concept in other regions.
In honor of the important work being done by our colleagues from, or working on,
the Global South, we believe this collection will provide an alternative methodological,
­theoretical, and epistemological perspective on journalism, making a strong case for the de-
essentialization of the field and the recognition of non-Western journalism scholarship based
in the Global South. In furthering knowledge within this increasingly complex discipline, we
aim to show the relevance of customs, traditions, and cultures in defining and shaping local
and regional journalism. Above all, we fully endorse calls for dialogue and collaboration,
which several scholars, including many of those invited to participate in this book project,
have long called for.
As scholars from, and researching on, the Global South, we recognize the urgent need
to challenge the dominant Western narrative on journalism scholarship and practice. For
that reason, a call for regionalizing journalism must emphasize the importance of diversify-
ing perspectives to overcome the historical imposition of Western journalism standards on
the Global South. The stigmas and stereotypes associated with reporting from non-Western
regions have perpetuated a biased representation in academic literature. In the following sec-
tion, we aim to uncover the distinct histories, cultural traits, and philosophical concerns that
shape journalism beyond Western European and North American societies. By highlighting
the spaces where Western and non-Western journalism coincide and depart from each other,
we aim to expose the limitations of applying universal Western norms to diverse contexts.

3
 Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

This exploration ultimately contributes to the broader mission of de-essentializing the field
and recognizing the importance of non-Western journalism scholarship in shaping the future
of journalism.

Models for Western and Non-Western Journalism: Differences

and Similarities
Ancestral forms of historic documentation have existed since the establishment of primitive
civilizations. Every single society, despite its level of progress, has developed the necessary
infrastructure to sustain the systematic recording of knowledge in an attempt to protect their
heritage. Over the years, however, historians have had to deal with historical bias (McCul-
lagh, 2000) – that is, the unconscious or intentional inclination to provide a partial, and
often unbalanced, account of a historical event. Colonization, from the 15th century all the
way to the 19th century, paved the way for the indiscriminate amplification of biased histori-
cal accounts, which, on the one hand, silenced and invisibilized local and indigenous histori-
cal records and accounts and, on the other hand, consolidated Western European and North
American historiographies as mainstream.
One of those mainstream historiographies is the invention of journalism. The disputed
claim that journalism was invented in either France or the United States (Chalaby, 1996)
is well-known among professional journalists, journalism scholars, and students. Whether
one or the other is accurate, both accounts reinforce the watchdog depiction of journalism
by associating it with primal forms of pamphleteering that mobilized dissidents against the
French monarchy and the British colonizers, respectively. As picturesque as these histori-
cal accounts are, and as inspiring as the subsequent professionalization of journalism in the
United States, Britain, and France is, the fact cannot be ignored that other multiple forms of
historical journaling that existed in the East and the Global South from remote times were
invisibilized and excluded from this mainstream history of journalism.
For this reason, as scholars from, and researching on, the Global South, we have made it
our priority to unearth and bring to the fore the distinctive histories, cultural traits, philo-
sophical concerns, and questions that shape journalism beyond Western European and North
American societies. This section, therefore, will attempt to provide the reader with a brief
and oversimplified overview of the spaces where Western and non-Wester journalism behave
similarly and the spaces where they depart from each other. In the next section we discuss the
ways in which Western norms and standards in journalism have been globally institutional-
ized as the golden standards via foreign aid and training (Lugo-Ocando, 2020) in the Global
South. Notably, as these golden standards tend to be uncritically internalized and assumed
generalizable enough to be applicable in any context regardless of its geopolitical specificity,
journalists from, or working in, the Global South often have to deal with the tensions that
arise when trying to implement a set of golden standards devised for a societal context differ-
ent to that where they practice their profession.
As part of our academic journey, in 2021 we were invited to edit a Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly forum reflecting on the ontologies of journalism in the Global
South, and we had the privilege to invite a group of high-caliber scholars from Latin Amer-
ica, Africa, Asia, the Arab World, and Eastern Europe to discuss the shape of journalism in
our regions. One of the points of confluence during our conversations, and definitely one of
those instances where both Western and non-Western journalism behave similarly, was the
belief that there was a universal journalism, whose norms and standards had to be applied

4
 Regionalizing Journalism

equally. However, as Marquez-Ramirez and Mellado put it when they talked about Latin
American journalism:

Latin American journalists have been trained in traditional liberal norms like objectivity
and factuality, but they primarily support active social change roles (Hanitzsch et al.,
2019) that clash with those values. They seem restricted – rather than empowered –
by liberal norms and missions that are only functional in established democracies
­(Lugo-Ocando, 2020). Concepts like press freedom, the watchdog role of the press, or
the Fourth Estate fail to capture the needs of societies in constant turmoil and contexts
of increased media and/or State power.
(Mutsvairo et al., 2021)

The main issue we have faced during our academic collaboration is the frequent impulse
from mainstream knowledge institutions to disregard forms of journalism that occur in non-
democratic contexts as not proper journalism. By trying to understand journalism in the
Global South through the paradigm of Western liberal journalism, mainstream discourses on
journalism practice and scholarship have failed to appreciate the rich heritage and cultural
values that shape journalism in these regions and the prowess of its journalists in trying to do
Western journalism in the Global South. And here is where we see the manifest differences
between Western and non-Western journalism. During our forum conversations, Mabwe-
azara highlighted the idea that the concept of ubuntuism has had marked implications for
journalism practice in the African continent. He remarks that ubuntuism

constitutes the unquestioned background filter navigated by journalists in their news-

making routines and can be invoked to explain some of the most distinct professional
practices and cultures in Africa that relate, inter alia, to widespread practices of patron-
age, clientelism, political parallelism, and partisan reportorial routines. The pervasive
cultures of press patronage, for example, can be interpreted as sustained by cultural
orientations in which “respect for old age” and the “sanctity of authority” are inherent
constituent elements seen as giving “form and stability to the way people communi-
cate” (Faniran, 2014, p. 152) in Africa.
(Mutsvairo et al., 2021)

Mabweazara’s remarks unequivocally highlight the reductionist effort to homogenize all

forms of journalism by using the same Western prism. As he indicates, “[t]he default approach
to studying and evaluating distinct practices and professional cultures is to apply univer-
sal (Western) ethical approaches that out-rightly condemn them as proscribed” (Mutsvairo
et al., 2021). When expressing the elements that shaped journalism in Central and Eastern
Europe during our forum, Demeter and Głowacki voiced similar concerns of reductionism,
homogenization, and the imposition of Western values when they argued:

However, the uncritical export of the norms of Western journalism was not successful
in [Central and Eastern Europe] CEE. Deeply rooted regional cultural values such as
social harmony, unity, respect for central authority, and collectivism were confronted
with the Western norms of individualism, rule of formal law, creativity, and the “watch-
dog” role of journalists (Lauk, 2008).
(Mutsvairo et al., 2021)

5
 Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

Badr brought to our forum similar ideas on Arab journalism when she explained that
“[f]rom a Western normative perspective, Arab journalism can be dismissed as underdevel-
oped, politicized, and obedient” (Mutsvairo et al., 2021). Shen then explained that Arab
journalism is not concerned with the same inquietudes of Western journalism around demo-
cratic values or technological infrastructure. Instead, she expresses that:

When analyzing Arab journalism, we need to let go of Western-centric linear processes

of transitions toward democracy (Carothers, 2002) and address challenging conceptual
questions, such as: How can one label loyalist journalists who are not coopted, but who
willingly support the current order of power in fear of a state collapse without infantilizing
their concerns in an Orientalist way? Should the role of journalists be to report freely and
fairly or to support the regime’s stability, even if it comes at the cost of their independence?
(Mutsvairo et al., 2021)

Indeed, research has started to pay close attention to the local and cultural values that shape
journalism in regions of the Global South in an attempt to conceptualize and understand
these various forms of journalism in a more accurate way. A recent study by Wu (2022), for
instance, found that data journalism in six Asian countries displayed a “set of ‘Asian values’
pertaining to collectivism, social harmony, norm conformity and deference to authority.”
These values, which some argue are shaped by Eastern philosophies like Confucianism, Tao-
ism, and Buddhism in Asia (Dalton & Ong, 2005), would have otherwise been disregarded
as not proper journalistic values and norms through a Western paradigm.
This is, obviously, just the tip of the iceberg of a larger conversation that must continue
and has to engage colleagues from the Global North. Transnational comparative work, such
as the Journalistic Role Performance Project (JRP) (Mellado, 2020) or the Worlds of Journal-
ism Study (Hanitzsch et al., 2019), has shown the need to study journalism in the Global
South from a non-Western paradigm; now we need the Western mainstream academic and
professional practice to listen.
It does not take an exhaustive comparative examination of journalism in Western and non-
Western contexts to understand that the idea of journalism as a universal practice faces signifi-
cant challenges. With this section, we hoped to shed some light on the historical biases and
Western-centric narratives that have dominated mainstream accounts of journalism, which
often neglect the rich and diverse traditions of non-Western societies. This realization prompts
a critical reflection on the need to understand journalism beyond that Western prism. Within
this context, the focus of the following section shifts toward a brief theorization of journalism
in the Global South, acknowledging the unique socio-political, economic, ideological, and
educational factors that shape journalism practices in non-Western regions. Therefore, we
aim to unravel the complex interplay of individual influences, media routines, organizational
structures, external factors, and ideological forces that contribute to the construction of news
discourses in non-Western models of journalism practice. Through this transition, we hope
to reinforce the imperative of contextualizing journalism within its regional and cultural spe-
cificities, challenging the notion of a homogeneous global journalism.

Theorizing Journalism in the Global Souths: Key Characteristics

The real issues start with the perception that journalism is the same everywhere. The prin-
ciples and ethics that are so dear to some cultures are not considered important in others.

6
 Regionalizing Journalism

It has long been assumed that the practice and conceptualization of journalism is universal
across the world. Journalism students in their first year of journalism studies at universities
in the Global South are taught the Western histories, theories, and elements of journalism
practice. At the same time, the upskilling of journalists in the Global South is conducted by
trainers from the United States, UK, and Europe who teach “best practices” of journalism.
This has always been based on the premise that the Western way of doing journalism is the
golden standard. In turn, current and future journalists from the Global South have always
aspired to do journalism through Western methods and practices. As the development of
digital media shows no sign of slowing, it is important to analyze the dominating themes
that have remained influential in ensuring the field gains universal recognition, particularly
with a non-Western slant.
Yet this has not crystalized on the ground, and not because of any shortage in skills from
reporters from the Global South. The issue has been the failure to acknowledge that media
ecologies across non-Western countries are very different from that of Western media ecolo-
gies. They are not worse, but different. The purpose of this book is therefore to delve deeper
into what it means to regionalize journalism practice outside Western contexts, and to do
so by unpacking how different models of journalism that are region-specific could develop
and evolve.
There are various factors to consider when framing various models of journalism
practice, and these include social, political, economic, ideological, and educational. One
framework that could be useful here is Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese’s
(1996) “hierarchical model.” Starting from the bottom of the “hierarchical model” is
what they position as the “individual level,” which could be understood as the “influences
on content from individual media workers.” At this level, the “factors that are intrinsic
to the communication worker” are considered, such as their education, personal back-
ground, and professional history (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 64). Additionally, other
considerations include their value and belief systems and how they perceive their roles
(Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 64). This is followed by the “media routines level,” which
refers to the “influence of media routines” that is associated with “an organizational per-
spective on the mass media” (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 107). Then the “organization
level,” meaning, the “organizational influences on content” that focus on the nature of
“roles performed, the way they are structured, the policies flowing through that structure,
and the methods used to enforce those policies” (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, pp. 172–
173). The “extramedia level” follows, which ties with “influences on content from outside
of media organizations” and that incorporate “sources of the information,” “revenue
sources,” the “economic environment,” “technology,” and “other social institutions,”
which include governments and businesses (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, p. 175). At the
top of the “hierarchical model” – and which includes all the aforementioned influences –
is the “ideological level,” which refers to as the “influence of ideology.” This influence
is connected with relations of power, since “media transmission of ideology works as it
does by drawing on familiar cultural themes that resonate with audiences” (Shoemaker &
Reese, 1996, p. 222).
In essence, these factors play a significant role in the construction of news discourses,
particularly when it comes to considering global journalistic forces within a global news
space (Reese, 2001). These could be considered “forces of discursive media power” (Bebawi,
2016), which could be considered the characteristics that shape how regionalized journalism
outside Western models of journalism practice and theorization.

7
 Bruce Mutsvairo, Saba Bebawi, and Eddy Borges-Rey

Structure of This Book

The first part theorizes journalism in the Global South. Chapters in this part showcase the
diversity of journalism in this expansive region, giving the reader opportunities to under-
stand diverse developments in non-Western journalism. These chapters provide a window to
reflect on what journalism really means epistemologically and ontologically when seen from
non-Western, regional lens. Its purpose is not to simply show the distinctiveness of journal-
ism in the Global South when compared to “Western journalism.” Instead, it is an opportu-
nity to demonstrate various journalistic developments scattered across various regions, such
as the Arab World, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Part 2 explores pedagogic paradigms and
predicaments, attempting to show the challenges associated with teaching and training jour-
nalism in non-Western societies. This is very important because it offers an opportunity to
show the challenges and opportunities, both missed and existing, that could help transform
the field globally in terms of knowledge production and inclusivity. Part 3 is a compilation
of chapters making a case for but also revealing the importance of diversifying journalism
practices. In other words, chapters in this section show the complex nature of regional gener-
alization because the Middle East or Africa, for example, are home to countries with diverse
political, social, and economic backgrounds, which, in turn, lead to a multiplicity of journal-
ism emerging from these continents. So the “Global South” itself is not without problems.
Part 4 zooms in on collaborations between Western and non-Western journalism scholarship
in practice and theory. Should they be promoted or not? Leading journalism academics from
the West who have worked in the South, and vice versa (e.g., Susana Salgado, Kristin Skare-
Orgeret), will reflect on their experiences teaching, collaborating, and conducting research
in two “different worlds.” Part 5 focuses on long-standing and new debates on journalism
ethics, giving an opportunity to scholars to define and redefine journalism standards from a
non-Western perspective.

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9
 PART I

Theorizing Journalism in the Global

South
 2
WHAT DEFINES JOURNALISM
IN/FROM THE GLOBAL
SOUTH?
Insights from Latin America

Silvio Waisbord and Adriana Amado

What Is the “Global South”?

In the past decades, the concepts of “Global South” and “Global North” have entered the
vernacular in the social sciences and the humanities. They reflect long-standing intellectual
and political debates about ways to comprehend global societies, politics, cultures, and eco-
nomics. These categories reflect a critical, historical approach to world development that
foregrounds power relations and the mutually constitutive nature of global relationships.
They are shorthand for calling out the persistence of power inequalities, changing forms of
colonialism and domination, and structural differences shaped by historical legacies.
From this perspective, the “Global South” remains a valuable analytical and normative
construct – an “imagined community” of (most) countries around the world, arguably tied
together by a history of colonialism and global position despite myriad differences. A geo-
graphical concept (“South”) refers to most countries that rank lower in Human Develop-
ment Indices, such as income, life expectancy, and education, than countries in the Global
North. For critical scholars, the Global South conveys multilayered histories and power rela-
tions and bridges astonishing differences into a common denominator of subalternity and
liberation across the Middle East, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The meaning of the Global
South is only intelligible vis-à-vis the “Global North” – its counterpart in an essential dyad of
global development. It operates as an analytical prism to situate the analysis within structures
and dynamics in the context of global power. It also carries political assumptions about the
inherent difference and conflict between the South and the North, the opposition between
global regions with such dramatic past and present, conditions of wealth and dispossession.
With similar assumptions and analytical purposes, the concept of the Global South has
been used in journalism, media, and communication studies. It appears in two fundamental
aspects of the ontology and the epistemology of academic studies: the approach to scholarly
studies (“how to situate a given problem”) and the intellectual frameworks used to under-
stand a problem (“what theoretical and conceptual tools should be used”).
Ontologically, the argument is that themes and questions need to be situated within the
Global South’s historical and contemporary global position. The particular socio-economic

13 DOI: 10.4324/9781003298144-3

 Silvio Waisbord and Adriana Amado

and political conditions in the Global South need to be emphasized. Any phenomenon is
inevitably shaped by the unique circumstances of countries and regions. This assumption
applies to the study of the global structures and flow of large-scale communication, the
political economy of media industries (e.g., technology, content, policies), the development
and the practices of professional cultures in media industries, media consumption, and sense-
making, or patterns of interactivity and public action. Epistemologically, the argument is that
the study should take a double position: the valorization of indigenous theories, concepts,
and debates grounded in academic, philosophical, and religious traditions that originated in
the Global South, and the skepticism (or, in a more extreme version, the rejection) of schol-
arship embedded in ideas and traditions from the Global North.
Consequently, a scholarly sensibility to these considerations is necessary to achieve two
goals: to produce studies grounded in particular historical, social, and cultural specificities
and to nurture scholarship imbued by local and regional sensibilities that contributes to
de-Westernizing global scholarship. The Global South appears as both an ontological and
epistemological imperative – a necessary corrective to well-known problems in the big tent
of communication studies: the historical domination of the one-way flow of ideas (“from the
West to the rest”), the pervasive universalist assumptions about how ideas work and travel,
and the uncritical adoption of theories and models produced in essentially different contexts.
The idea of the Global South conjures up a project to decolonize knowledge, point out
significant blind spots in communication scholarship, and push for further participation and
recognition of a plurality of voices in global academia.
These debates and arguments have appeared in contemporary journalism studies too.
Recent calls for understanding the particular “ontologies of journalism” (Mutsvairo et al.,
2021) reflect a new chapter in decolonizing the field by acknowledging the particularities of
journalism in the Global South and grounding the analysis on local and regional intellectual
perspectives (Mabweazara, 2018). Underlying this argument are the ontological and epis-
temological premises previously mentioned. The local realities of journalism in the Global
South are comparable insofar as they are essentially different from “Western” (a metonym
for the Global North) models and practices. Expecting that “Western” principles would fit
or describe “Southern” journalism is misguided, for it ignores profoundly different contexts.
The belief is that “Western” ideals and practices hardly travel well. Likewise, it would be
mistaken to cling to “Western” theories to make sense of journalistic ethics, practices, and
work conditions in the Global South. Different analytical lenses are needed, instead, that are
embedded in local realities and intellectual traditions, conditions.

Latin American Journalism and the Concept of the Global South

In this chapter, our interest is to revisit this line of argument by examining core elements of
Latin American journalism. Our goal is to assess whether we can legitimately speak about
Latin American journalism as a coherent entity that reflects supposedly unique aspects of
journalism in the Global South and that is different from its counterpart in the Global North.
By doing so, we hope to contribute to discussions about journalisms in the Global South
and about the existence of points of intersections and divergence with Western journalism.
Our argument is that while it is necessary to foreground the uniqueness of journalism
in the Global South, it is important, too, to specify those aspects and to recognize that
journalism has always been open to a range of global influences. Any attempt to find a
sweeping explanation or construct distinct, general categories, like about global or regional

14
 What Defines Journalism in/from the Global South?

journalisms, runs the risk of gliding over important differences across a vast landscape charac-
terized by unevenness, fissures, and difference. To dispatch convoluted histories and develop-
ments in a single category may overlook significant nuances.
Because journalism has long been globalized, it would be wrong to assume that it can
exist in perfect isolation from global flows of ideas, funding, and policies. Yet as journalism
metabolizes myriad influences and is suspended in local and global networks of influence
and power, it does not exist in conditions that could be viewed as unique to the Global
South. Neither the jejune argument about a one-way, Western imposition of journalistic
norms nor the heroic vision of pure indigenous evolution is empirically accurate. Instead, his-
tory shows that journalism in Latin America has been hybrid. It has absorbed, rejected, and
combined various influences with particular socio-cultural, political, and economic realities.
Journalism offers points of similarity and difference with journalism in other regions in the
Global South as well as in the Global North. We find neither replicas of traditions of West-
ern journalism nor split images of journalism in other regions in the Global South. Rather,
journalism evolved from blending Western influences and indigenous developments, adapt-
ing and adjusting opportunities and flows to contexts characterized by several conditions:
huge socio-economic disparities, democratic failings, political instability, media clientelism,
maladroit state interventionism, runaway commercialism, vast areas of lawlessness, cultural
hybridity, and chronic labor problems.
Throughout its modern history, Latin American journalism has been a fertile ground
for the mixing of (primarily) European traditions and indigenous trends and movements.
Even before most countries gained independence from Spain and Portugal in the 1820s, the
region has long been the crossroads for ideas and practices from various origins, rather than
a purely provincial affair or a geopolitical territory exclusively subjected to Western flows
of ideas. Lines of connections to the United States and some European countries as well as
within the region have been evident since colonial times. Furthermore, the region has long
been a cauldron of ideas, organized politics, social movements, and cultural battles that
yielded quite diverse journalistic traditions and practices.
This resulted in the mingling of journalistic traditions and practices shaped by vastly dif-
ferent economic and political conditions. Commercial and political interests have continued
to shape news industries and journalistic practices. News organizations in resource-rich areas,
primarily metropolitan regions with extensive private and public advertising, have been bet-
ter endowed than hundreds of publications in resource-poor areas. While some journalists
have been employed primarily to report news, colleagues typically juggle reporting with
advertising-jobbing and public relations gigs, especially in resource-poor areas. Furthermore,
political conditions have been different too. From the democratic rule of law to authoritarian
regimes that have persecuted critical journalists, various political conditions have opened or
closed opportunities for various types of journalism.
Under these conditions, there has not been a dominant, unified paradigm promoted,
institutionalized, and exalted by the news industry, political elites, journalistic organizations,
and educational institutions. Journalism as an occupation and a pillar of democracy has been
historically too contested ever to achieve canonical status. Despite the rhetoric of large news
corporations in favor of “independent” journalism and the efforts of governments to subject
journalism to their whims, neither independence nor propaganda uniformly defined a mul-
tilayered, heterogeneous press.
Contemporary journalism is no different, even though globalization has accelerated con-
tacts with models and trends around the world. There is no unified, hegemonic model of

15
 Silvio Waisbord and Adriana Amado

journalism in Latin America. Reasonably paid jobs in premier news organizations coexist
with low-paying jobs across hundreds of newspapers, television and radio news, and digital
sites. Partisan rags and tabloids are part of the same information ecosystems as carefully pro-
duced publications. Government mouthpieces live side by side with audacious investigative
journalism. News organizations primarily directed to courting well-off, urban publics as well
as others that cater to a broad swath of the publics are part of journalism in the region. If we
take Latin America as indicative of the situation of journalism in the Global South, it is clear
that diversity and hybridity are common characteristics.

The Essential Conditions of Latin American Journalism

What defines Latin American journalism is not natural or intuitive. It may seem obvious
only if one espouses essentialism grounded in geopolitical or historical structures that have
presumably shaped comparable and unique conditions, yet those are contextual factors
rather than structural determinants. There are no essential elements to infer the presence of
a “Southern” model in the region – whatever that means – that is different from the Global
North as a whole. Investigating what elements bind journalism(s) in Latin America may offer
insights into whether we can make a compelling case for identifying journalistic conditions
and practices unique to the region or the Global South.
We examine core aspects of journalism ethics and practices: professional values, press sys-
tems, labor precarity, and innovations amid technological and industry changes.

Professional Values
Are there common professional values in Latin American journalism? This question has long
been the subject of intense scrutiny and discussion. Positions range from claiming that jour-
nalists upheld myriad values that resulted from US and European influences with indig-
enous developments to asserting that they adopted modern Western ethics of objectivity
and fairness. Studies have consistently shown that professional values are defined by hybrid
ethics. News organizations espouse different ethical commitments and professional norms,
including partisanship, advocacy, fact-based reporting, and straightforward propaganda. The
core values of Western journalism, independence, neutrality, evenhandedness, and objectivity
have been contested rather than firmly institutionalized. Just as Latin America did not experi-
ence a process of modernization following a Western path, journalism did not copy values
and trends that originated in the Global North. What has happened has been more dynamic
and complex than straight importation or flat rejection of Western influences.
Research shows that journalistic values are heterogeneous. Professional ethics vary accord-
ing to the editorial orientation of news organizations, news beats, political conditions, politi-
cal parallelism, and type of news medium (Mellado et al., 2017). The political regime is
fundamental regarding specific models and ethics, such as watchdog journalism, because not
all regimes offer similarly hospitable conditions (Márquez-Ramírez et al., 2020). Likewise,
the gap between aspirational values (what kind of journalism reporters aspire to practice) and
actual practices needs to be explained by the particular configuration of news/media systems
in Latin America. Even if journalists value certain ethical norms, their practices do not match
such expectations (Mellado et al., 2018)
Journalistic values cannot be understood outside the particular characteristics of press/
media systems in the region (Echeverría et al., 2021). Identifying particular labels for press

16
 What Defines Journalism in/from the Global South?

systems remains a point of debate. While one can find common elements throughout the
region, talking about a single Latin American model is incorrect. Cuba’s one-party press rule,
Costa Rica’s long history of democracy, Mexico’s clientelistic system, and Chile’s commercial
and concentrated system are different in important ways. Nevertheless, a few individual char-
acteristics of press systems across the region can be identified.
First, most systems exhibit “media captured” features, where fundamental aspects are
shaped by the proximity between news organizations and political and economic pow-
ers. This doesn’t mean that absolutely every news organization is necessarily absorbed by
these structural dynamics or that news coverage in general exclusively reflects such political-
economic arrangements. Such assumption misses interesting developments and experiences
that are not firmly ensconced in broad captured media policies.
Second, commercialism and partisanship remain dominant elements. Just as private own-
ership and benefit have long been at the core of the news industries, states have remained
major economic actors, especially in areas with low levels of private advertising and media
clientelism. The economics of news organizations are closely tied to national, state, and local
governments, who generally wield discretionary power over key matters, such as advertis-
ing, taxation, and other levers that affect news companies, especially if they are branches of
industrial conglomerates. From an economic perspective, the supposed conclusion is that
there is less autonomy in private media than in public media. Still, empirical studies demon-
strate that autonomy depends on diverse circumstances, and it shows various occurrences in
different countries (Mancini, 2013). European public media are different from state-owned
media in Latin America, which have no autonomy of administration and budget (Hallin &
Mancini, 2004).
Third, editorial policies are often intertwined with political polarization. Because news
organizations are editorially aligned with competing parties, electoral coalitions, and govern-
ments, news coverage and journalistic practices are sensitive to polarized politics. As news
organizations openly take sides on public issues aligned with competing political parties and
factions, balanced, evenhanded news is rare, and critical reporting is subjected to editorial
calculations. These dynamics should not be seen simply as examples of political parallelism
in which news organizations and political actors (parties, unions) maintain formal and stable
connections. Situations are entirely dynamic, as they may vary with changes in government
and particular agreements between companies and officials. Also, political parties and elec-
toral coalitions are volatile in most countries. Thus, despite ideological communion between
the editorial positions of news organizations and ideological and political forces, the situation
does not neatly fit the traditional pattern of political parallelism.
In a region with a spotty history of democratic governance, political conditions, namely,
the conditions of press freedom, also shape journalistic values and practices. Journalistic
norms are possible only within certain political conditions. Even if there has not been a mas-
sive regional shift to authoritarian regimes, as when military dictatorships ruled much of the
region in the 1970s, journalism, determined to hold governments accountable, continues to
face significant obstacles. Several countries are regularly ranked among the most challenging
environments for practicing journalism globally. Conditions have been particularly dire in
Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. In countries with areas of statelessness, such as Mexico
and Colombia, journalism that covers networks of corruption and violence is constantly
under threat.
The problematic relationship between the government and the press is reflected in press
freedom indices, such as the annual ranking published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

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 Silvio Waisbord and Adriana Amado

Since 2019, only two South American countries have been ranked in the top third of global
rankings: Uruguay (18) and Chile (54). In the middle are Argentina (69) and Ecuador
(96), followed by Brazil (111) and Bolivia (110). At the bottom of the table are countries
where journalists face severe violence, such as Colombia (134), Mexico (143), and Venezuela
(148). Except for a few countries that have recorded a slight improvement in journalistic
freedom since 2017 (Uruguay, Mexico, and Ecuador), Latin American journalism suffered
a general deterioration in direct attacks and structural factors. Many of them are considered
by RSF ranking, such as pluralism in the media system, the legal framework, infrastructure,
transparency, and censorship.
Although situations widely vary across and within countries, violence is too common.
It is expressed in various forms of physical violence (from murders to harassment), verbal
intimidation – offline and online – and draconian press laws intended to constrain report-
ing and push journalists to self-censorship. Given these conditions, it is remarkable that
many news organizations scattered throughout the region have tried to hold power account-
able by revealing corruption and wrongdoing and putting the spotlight on a range of social
problems.
Recently, 14 civil society organizations formed “Voces del Sur” to coordinate the imple-
mentation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16.10.1 in Latin America.
This goal sets targets “to ensure public access to information and protect fundamental free-
doms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.” Their moni-
toring data shows that during 2020, authoritarian tendencies increased in the region. The
authoritarian upsurge is even worse than in 2019, when Shadow Report emphasized that
Latin American journalism was increasingly threatened by the rapid deterioration of funda-
mental freedoms in a context of increasing populism and social upheaval.
In 2020, Voces del Sur registered 3,350 total alerts. As was the case in 2018 (55%) and
2019 (75%), the majority of alerts (59%) in 2020 identify the state as the perpetrator of
violations. Considering that the state has the mandate to guarantee and protect freedom of
expression, press freedom, access to information, and the safety and security of journalists,
this trend represents a major obstacle to improving the situation of these fundamental free-
doms in the region. In 2020, six journalists were murdered in Mexico, while Guatemala and
Colombia each saw two journalists killed. The overwhelming majority of violations commit-
ted in these countries are aggressions and attacks: 60% in Colombia, 88% in Guatemala, and
61% in Mexico. Many countries in the region are the most dangerous to be a journalist. Ten
journalists were killed during the first trimester of 2022, including seven in Mexico.
In summary, this mix of political-economic conditions not only characterizes journal-
ism’s structure and dynamics across Latin America but also sets it apart from countries,
especially in the Global North, with a long history of democratic stability, public broadcast-
ing news, advertising-rich markets, favorable legal environments, and peaceful conditions.
It would have been quite surprising that, given dramatic differences, professional ethics
associated with Western journalism had taken deep roots in Latin America. Abstract mod-
els are incorporated and processed within conditions that yield situated journalistic ethics
(Waisbord, 2016).

Labor Conditions
Labor precarity is another defining condition of journalism in the region (Macías & Robledo
2021). Before this issue became a global matter of interest and concern, precarity has been

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 What Defines Journalism in/from the Global South?

a long-standing, historical characteristic of news work across Latin America, a region with
high levels of informal employment. Precarity refers to unstable and insecure forms of work
and employment and poor working conditions. It is reflected in newsrooms with insufficient
staff, appallingly low salaries, lack of benefits, reporters who hold multiple jobs, and regular
expectations about the volume of filed stories. Weak trade unions, outdated labor laws, and
the absence of tax laws that could mitigate the worst effects of the crisis make journalists
vulnerable to employers’ decisions and economic swings in the news industry.
Data from the Worlds of Journalism (WoJ) study offers a comparative perspective of seven
Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, and
Mexico, between 2013 and 2016. There are significant variations across these countries for
the variables associated with work instability, increasing workloads, and potential institu-
tional support to deal with the consequences of precarity (Márquez-Ramírez et al., 2021).
More than a fifth (21.7%) of journalists work part-time jobs in these countries, and even a
third in Brazil and Argentina (35.4% and 31.13%, respectively). Although most journalists
(70.7%) work on permanent contracts and long-term positions, figures vary significantly
across countries. For example, more than half (53.2%) of Colombian and nearly a third
(31.9%) of Ecuadorian journalists work on short-term contracts.
More than a fourth (27.85%) of Latin American journalists worked for two or more news-
rooms. As the problem is most pervasive in Mexico, where more than two-thirds of journal-
ists (68.4%) work for more than one media organization, it is less relevant among journalists
in Brazil (14.6%) and Colombia (16.3%). Nearly a third of Latin American ­journalists (31.4%)
who participated in the WoJ study had resorted to holding other jobs outside journalism to
make ends meet. In Argentina, four in ten (41.3%) journalists employed in news organiza-
tions had other outside paid activities, 34.8% in Mexico, 32.5% in El Salvador, and 32% in
Ecuador.
The WoJ survey shows that journalists are expected to file an average of 25 stories per
week. Mexican journalists produce or supervise an average of 51.6 news articles per week,
while Brazilian journalists are expected to produce 14.31 stories per week on average. In all
likelihood, the quality of journalism suffers when reporters are expected to produce several
such stories. In such conditions, they cannot dedicate sufficient time to cultivate multiple
sources, gain in-depth knowledge about certain subjects, conduct extensive fact-gathering,
utilize data, and produce stories.
Without union intervention or clear job descriptions, functional flexibility is dominant.
According to the data of WoJ, Brazil is the leading country where journalists are mem-
bers of professional organizations (40.8%), with Argentina in second place (36.2%). Else-
where, membership is appallingly low. In Ecuador, Chile, and Mexico, only 20 and 25%
of respondents belong to journalistic organizations or unions. Low membership of profes-
sional associations and unions reflects low trust in traditional forms of collective actions
and representation, especially for confronting harsh labor conditions. (Márquez-Ramírez
et al., 2021)
Entrepreneurship or gig employment is expected in job markets with high levels of infor-
mal employment, and where journalists are often expected to bring advertising in addition
to their reporting. Digital platforms and radio and television companies frequently lease
time slots to journalists. In turn, journalists need to secure their advertising and produce
shows. Frequently, journalists capitalize on their professional reputation, typically built-in
legacy newsrooms, among private advertisers and governments. Extensive media clientelism
facilitates this arrangement as journalists with government contacts can secure funding for

19
 Silvio Waisbord and Adriana Amado

their programs. Shows are produced on shoestring budgets, with low production values and
low salaries.
While digital news opened job opportunities in the past two decades, digital labor condi-
tions, including salaries and job expectations, are generally worse than in legacy newsrooms.
The structural conditions hitherto described shape recent innovations and adaptations to
demands and trends in digital journalism. Just like in the rest of the world, the consolidation
of the digital society has also shaken up the foundations of industrial journalism in Latin
America. The ways that journalism, including legacy and digital-based companies, has tried
to adapt, survive, and incorporate recent trends confirm the earlier dynamics. According to
particular technological, business, and political conditions, local processes have harnessed
innovations and global models. Recent experiences of news start-ups, fact-checking report-
ing, data journalism, solutions journalism, and investigative and collaborative reporting
suggest a pattern: the localization of global trends according to challenges for sustainable
funding, access to digital technologies and data, and varying political contexts. We do not
intend to offer a comprehensive summary of these experiences, which many studies have
already done effectively. Instead, we want to call attention to the following: they confirm that
journalism’s evolution occurs at the intersection of global and local developments in ways
that produce comparable phenomena yet are uniquely grounded in particular situations. The
most remarkable examples of journalistic innovations feature particularities and faced unique
political and financial challenges in the past decades.
The coronavirus pandemic impacts differently in Latin American journalism (Newman
et al., 2021). While in Chile, independent reporting of Covid-19 allowed restoring trust,
undermined during the 2019 social crisis, in Brazil, journalism was sucked into political
quarrels between the mainstream media and President Jair Bolsonaro. Presidential attacks on
the press were also common in Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela, where pandemic and vac-
cine information was concentrated in governmental sources, with aggressive campaigns on
social media from official accounts (Linvill et al., 2022). According to Voces del Sur (2020),
at least 359 journalists lost their lives due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 13 countries in the
region. The numbers are likely higher, as many countries in the region significantly under-
report Covid-19 deaths.

Trends in Journalistic Practice

Given these conditions, it should be no surprise that cross-national trends in journalistic
practice have taken up unique aspects in Latin America. Here we have in mind practices
including fact-checking, data journalism, and investigative/collaborative reporting, which
newsrooms worldwide have adopted. Undoubtedly, important examples of these trends have
emerged in the region in the past decade. However, they reflect unique opportunities and
challenges for practicing certain reporting forms.
Like investigative journalism in the past (Waisbord, 2000), native digital sites combine
mainstream and alternative journalistic traditions (Saldaña & Waisbord, 2021). While their
members espouse the mainstream notion of professional journalism, they also identify with
normative approaches historically identified with the alternative media, such as community
participation, denouncing social injustices, and struggling to remain autonomous under par-
ticularly challenging business and political climates. Because Latin American countries lack
a well-developed philanthropic sector like in the United States – nor do they count on gen-
erous media public funding as in the European Union – digital start-ups have operated in

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Another random document with
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her features always wore had deepened; also, her figure was
somewhat less rounded than it appeared in those unregenerate days
when she turned herself about before Rupert, and assured him that
she was “not so bad.” Yet she was more beautiful now than then,
only the beauty was of a different character.
Rupert, on the other hand, had greatly improved in looks. The eye
that remained to him was quite bright and clear, and the flesh had
healed over the other in such a fashion that it only looked as if it
were shut. The scars left by the hot irons on his face had almost
vanished also. The bleaching of the sun, combined with other
causes, had turned his hair from red to an iron grey, to the great gain
of his appearance; moreover, the wide, rough beard, which had
caused Edith mentally to compare him to Orson as pictured in the
fairy books of her youth, was kept short, square, and carefully
trimmed. Lastly, his face, like Mea’s, had fined down, till it resembled
that of a powerful ascetic, which, in truth, he was. Indeed, although
they were so strangely different, they had yet grown like to one
another; seen in certain lights, and in their Arab robes, it would have
been quite possible to mistake them for brother and sister, as their
people called them among themselves.
For a long while, to these simple inhabitants of the desert, the
relations between the two had been a matter of mystery. They were
unable to understand why a man and woman, who were evidently
everything to each other, did not marry. At first they thought that
Rupert must have taken other wives among the women of the place,
but finding that this was not so, secretly they applied to Bakhita to
enlighten them. She informed them that because of vows that they
had made, and for the welfare of their souls, this pair had agreed to
adopt the doctrine of Renunciation.
Bakhita spoke with some hidden sarcasm, but as that doctrine, at
any rate in theory, is, and for thousands of years has been familiar to
the East, her questioners grasped the sense of the saying readily
enough, and on the strength of it gave Rupert a new name.
Thenceforth among them he was known as Zahed, which means the
Renouncer—one who, fixing his eyes upon a better, thrusts aside the
good things of this world. It is easy for a man who stands upon such
a pedestal to be lifted a little higher, at any rate amongst Easterns.
Therefore it came about that very shortly Rupert found himself
revered as a saint, a holy personage, who was probably inspired by
Heaven.
As he had no vices that could be discovered; as he neither drank
spirituous liquors nor even smoked, having given up that habit; as he
lived very simply, and gave largely to the poor; as he was noted for
the great cures he worked by his doctoring; as he dispensed justice
with an even hand, and by his hard work and ability turned the place
into an Eden flowing with milk and honey; and lastly, as his military
knowledge and skill in fortification made the oasis practically
impregnable to attack, this reputation of his grew with a rapidity that
was positively alarming. Had he wished it, it would have been easy
for Rupert to assume the character of a Mahdi, and to collect the
surrounding tribes under his banner to wage whatever wars he
thought desirable. Needless to say, he had no yearnings in that
direction, being quite sufficiently occupied in doing all the good that
lay to his hand in Tama.
Still, as he found that he was expected to address the people upon
certain feast days, generally once a month, he took the opportunity,
without mentioning its name, to preach his own faith to them, or at
any rate the morals which that faith inculcates, with the result that
after he had dwelt among them for five years, although they knew it
not, the population of Tama, being Coptic by blood and therefore
already inclined in that direction, was in many essentials Christian in
thought and character. This was a great work for one man to do in so
short a time, and as he looked around upon the result of the labours
of his hand and heart, Rupert in secret was conscious of a certain
pride. He felt that his misfortunes had worked together for good to
others as well as to himself. He felt that he had not lived in vain, and
that when he died, the seed which he had sown would bear fruit a
hundredfold. Happy is the man who can know as much as this, and
few there are that know it.
It was the day of the new moon, and, according to custom, Rupert
was engaged in delivering his monthly address. There had been
trouble in Tama. A man who had met with misfortunes after great
prosperity had publicly cursed all gods and committed suicide; while
another man, cruelly wronged, had taken the law into his own hands,
and murdered his neighbour. On these sad examples Rupert
discoursed.
Rupert and Mea, placed on this occasion upon the platform in the
hall of the ancient temple, where they were in the habit of sitting side
by side to administer justice, and for other public purposes, did not,
as it happened, know of the approach of a party of white travellers
that afternoon. It had been reported to them, indeed, that some
Europeans—two women and a man, with their servants—were
journeying across the desert, but as they did not understand that
these wished to come to Tama, Mea contented herself with giving
orders that they should receive any food or assistance that they
needed, and let the matter slip from her mind.
Her servants and the guards of the Black Pass executed this
command in a liberal spirit, and when the party, through an
interpreter, explained that they wished to visit the oasis, having
business with its sheik, presuming that they were expected, they
offered no objection, but even conducted them on their way. Only the
guards asked whom they meant by the sheik, Zahed, or the lady
Tama? as Zahed himself was not in the habit of receiving strangers.
They inquired who Zahed might be, and were informed of the
meaning of his name, also that he was a holy man, and a great
hakim or doctor, and by birth an Englishman, who had been sent by
Heaven to bless their people, and who was the “lord of the spirit” of
their lady Mea.
Edith, from her high perch on the top of a tall camel, an animal
which she feared and loathed, looked down at Lady Devene, who,
composed as usual, but with her fair skin burnt to the colour of
mahogany, sat upon a donkey as upright and as unmoved as though
that animal were her own drawing-room chair. Indeed, when it fell
down, as it did occasionally, she still sat there, waiting till someone
lifted it up again. Tabitha was an excellent traveller; nothing disturbed
her nerves. Still she preferred a donkey to a camel; it was nearer the
ground, she explained. So, for the matter of that, did Edith, only she
selected the latter beast because she thought, and rightly, that on it
she looked less absurd.
“Tabitha,” she said, “what on earth do you make of all that? Rupert
seems to have turned prophet, and to be married to this woman.”
“I should not wonder,” answered Lady Devene, looking up at the
graceful figure on the camel. “He is good stuff to make a prophet of,
but as for being married, they said only that he is lord of the lady’s
spirit. Also, they call him the Renouncer, so I do not think that he is
married.”
Edith, who had gathered that this lady was still young and very
good-looking, shook her head gloomily, for already she who had so
little right to be so was jealous of Mea.
“I expect that only means she has made him renounce some other
ones,” she suggested. “Of course, it would seem wonderful to all
these creatures if a man had only one wife.”
“Ach! we shall see, but at any rate you cannot grumble. It is a
matter for his own conscience, not for you who turned the poor man
out of doors. Ach! Edith, you must have the heart of a nether
millstone. But if you want to know more, tell that wretched Dick to
find out. He stopped back to drink some whisky and soda.”
Edith opened her white umbrella, although at the moment the sun
did not reach her in the pass, and interposed it between Tabitha and
herself to indicate that the conversation was finished. She did not
appreciate Lady Devene’s outspoken criticism, of which she had
endured more than enough during the past six weeks. Nor did she
wish to summon Dick to her assistance, for she knew exactly what
he would say.
Here it may be explained that Dick had not been asked to be a
member of this party, but when they embarked on the steamer at
Marseilles, they found him there. On being questioned as to the
reason of his presence, he stated quite clearly that his interests were
too much concerned in the result of their investigations to allow of his
being absent from them. So as they could not prevent him, with them
he came, accompanied by a little retinue of his own.
 For the rest of that journey, when she was not stifled by the
Campsine wind, which followed them up the pass, or thinking about
the joltings of the camel, and other kindred discomforts, Edith
remained lost in her own meditations. Rupert was here, of this there
could be no manner of doubt, and considering the fashion of their
last adieux, what on earth was she to say to him when they met?
Also, and this was more to the point, what would he say to her? She
was still a very pretty woman, and his wife; those were her only
cards; but whether Rupert would respond when she played them
remained more than doubtful. His last words to her were that he
hated her, that all his nature and his soul rose up in repugnance
against her; that even if she swore she loved him, he would not
touch her with his finger-tips, and that he would never willingly speak
to her again in this world or the next. This was fairly
uncompromising, and was it likely that Rupert, that patient, obstinate
Rupert, who here, it seemed, was adored by everybody, would of a
sudden vary a determination in which he had persisted for more than
seven years? Heartily did Edith wish that she had never come upon
this wild errand.
But she had been forced into it. Dick, whom she now cordially
detested and feared, but who unfortunately knew her secrets, had
put stories about concerning her which made it necessary for her to
act if she would save her own good repute. Rich as she was and
beautiful as she was, very few respectable people would have
anything to do with her in future, if it became known as a certain fact
that she had rejected her own husband when he rose from the dead,
merely because he was in trouble, had been physically injured, and
for the time lost his prospects of a peerage. This would be too much
even for a false and hypocritical world. But oh! she wished that she
could be conveyed to the other end of the earth, even if she had to
go there through the Campsine, and on this horrible, groaning camel.
Their road took a turn, and before them they saw the ruins of a
temple, and behind it a prosperous-looking Eastern town surrounded
by groves of palms and other trees. Through these they rode till they
came to the surrounding brick wall of the temple, where the
interpreter told them that the guide said they must dismount,
because Zahed was speaking, and the people would beat them if
they disturbed him.
So they obeyed, and the two of them, accompanied by the
interpreter and Dick, who had now arrived, were led through a door
in the temple wall into a side chapel, which about half-way down its
length opened out of the great hypostyle hall that was still filled with
columns, whereof most were standing. At the mouth of this chapel, in
the deep shadow behind a fallen column, whence they could see
without being seen, they were told to stand still, and did so, as yet
quite unnoticed. The sight before them was indeed remarkable.
All that great hall was crowded with hundreds of men, women, and
children, rather light in colour, and of a high-bred Arab stamp of
feature; clad, everyone of them, in clean and flowing robes, the men
wearing keffiehs or head-dresses of various colours, whereof the
ends hung upon their shoulders, and the women, whose faces were
exposed, wimple-like hoods. On a platform raised upon some broken
columns at the end of the hall were two figures, those of a man and
a woman, between whom sat a grey-snouted little dog, who looked
in their direction and snarled until the man reproved it.
With a kind of sudden pain, Edith recognised at the first glance
that this woman was extraordinarily beautiful, although in a fashion
that was new to her. The waving hair, uncovered by any veil, but
retained in place by the only emblem of her ancient royalty which
Mea still used, a band of dull gold whence, above her brow, rose the
uræus, or hooded snake, fell somewhat stiffly upon her shoulders, its
thick mass trimmed level at the ends. In it, as in a frame, was set the
earnest, mysterious face wherein glowed her large and lovely eyes.
Placed there on high, her rounded form wrapped in purest white did
not look small, or perhaps the dignity of her mien, her folded hands
and upright pose in her chair of state, seemed to add to its stature.
She was smiling as she always smiled, the coral-coloured lips were
slightly parted, and in the ray of sunlight that fell upon her from the
open roof, Edith could distinguish the rows of perfect teeth between
them, while her head was turned a little that she might watch her
companion with those wonderful and loving eyes. So this was the
savage woman of whom she had been told, this ethereal and
beautiful being with the wild, sweet face like to the face of an angel.
Mastering a desire to choke, Edith followed the woman’s glance to
the man at her side, for they sat together like the solemn, stately
figures of husband and wife upon the Egyptian stele which years ago
Rupert had brought from Egypt. Oh! it was Rupert, without a doubt,
but Rupert changed. Could that noble-looking chieftain in the flowing
robes of white which hid his feet, and the stately head-dress, also of
white, that fell upon his broad shoulders, be the same creature who,
clad in his cheap and hideous garments, she had dismissed from her
drawing-room in London as repulsive beyond bearing? Then his
beard was fiery red and straggling; now it was iron-grey, trimmed
square, and massive like his shoulders and his head. Then the eye
that remained to him was red and bloodshot; now it was large and
luminous. The face also had grown spiritual, like that of his
companion, a light seemed to shine upon it which smoothed away its
ruggedness. If not handsome, he looked what he was—a leader of
men, refined, good, noble, a man to love and to revere.
All this Edith understood in a flash, and by the light of that
illumination understood also for the first time the completeness of her
own wicked folly. There, set above the common crowd, adored and
adorable, with his beauteous consort, was the husband whom she
had cast away like dirt—for Dick’s sake. He, Dick, was speaking in
her ear, and she turned her head and glanced at him. His heavy
eyes were staring greedily at the loveliness of Mea; his fat, yellowish
cheeks lay in folds above the not too well shaven chin. He wiped his
bald head with a handkerchief that was no longer clean, and smelt of
cigarettes and whisky.
“By Jingo!” Dick was saying, “that little woman is something like,
isn’t she? No wonder our pious friend stopped in the Soudan. You
are nice-looking, Edith, but you have all your work cut out to get him
away from that houri. You had better go home and apply for a
divorce on the ground of desertion, just to save your face.”
“Be silent,” she whispered, almost in a hiss, and with a fierce flash
of her eyes.
 Must she listen to Dick’s ribaldry at such a moment? Oh! now she
was sure of it, it was he whom she hated, not Rupert.
Rupert was speaking in Arabic, and in a rich, slow voice that
reached the remotest recesses of that immemorial hall, emphasising
his words by quiet and dignified motions of his hands. He was
speaking, and every soul of that great company, in utter silence and
with heads bent in respect, hung upon his wisdom.
Tabitha poked the interpreter with the point of her white umbrella
and whispered.
“Tell me, Achmet,” she said, “what do his lordship say?”
Achmet listened, and from time to time interpreted the sense of
Rupert’s remarks in a low, rapid voice which none of the audience,
who were unaware of their presence, overheard.
“The noble lord, Zahed,” he informed them, “talks of gratitude to
God, which some of them have forgot; he shows them how they
should all be very grateful. He tells them his own story.”
“Ach! that is interesting,” said Lady Devene. “Go on, Achmet. I did
always want to hear that story.”
Achmet bowed and continued: “He says to his dear children that
he tells them this story that they may learn by that example how
grateful all people should be to Allah. He says that when he was a
boy he fell into deep sin, as perhaps some of them have done, but
God saved him then, and speaking by the voice of his mother, made
him promise to sin no more in that way, which promise he kept,
though he had sinned much in other ways. Then God lifted him up,
and from a person of no estate made him one of importance, and,
God preserving him all the time, he fought in battles and killed
people, for which, although it was in the service of his country, he is
sorry now. Afterwards he went to his own land and took a wife whom
he loved, but before she came to his house he was sent back to this
country upon a mission, about which they know. The Sheik of the
Sweet Wells attacked that mission and killed all of them except one
Abdullah, their lady Tama here, Bakhita who sat below, and himself.
Him they tortured, cutting off his foot and putting out his eye,
because he would not accept Islam, the false faith.”
 “It is so; it is so,” said the great audience, “we found you—but ah!
we took vengeance.”
“He says,” went on Achmet, “that of vengeance and forgiveness
he will talk to them presently. Their lady Tama here nursed him back
to life, and then he returned again to his own land.”
“Must I stay to listen to all this?” said Edith fiercely.
“No need,” answered Tabitha, “you can go back anywhere, but I
shall stay to listen. Go on, Achmet.”
Edith hesitated a moment, then not knowing whither to retreat, and
being consumed with burning curiosity, stayed also.
“He returned,” continued Achmet, in his summary, “to find himself
disgraced, no longer a man in honour, but one in a very small
position, because he was supposed to have neglected his duty, and
thereby brought about the death of many, and rubbed the face of the
Government in the dirt. He returned also to find that the wealth and
rank which would be his by right of inheritance had passed away
from him owing to an unexpected birth. Lastly, he returned to find
that his wife would have nothing more to do with a man whom
mutilations had made ugly, who was poor and without prospects, and
at the mention of whose name other men looked aside. He sought
his mother, and discovered that she was suddenly dead, so that he
was left quite alone in the world. That hour was very bitter; he could
scarcely bear to think of it even now.”
Here Rupert’s voice trembled, the multitude of his disciples
murmured, and the lady Tama, moved by a sudden impulse, bent
towards him as though to place her hand upon his arm in sympathy,
then remembering, withdrew it, and muttered some words which he
acknowledged with a smile. Now Rupert spoke again, and Achmet,
who was a clever interpreter, continued his rendering:
“Zahed says that bitterness overwhelmed him, that faith in God
departed, that his loneliness and his shame were such that he felt he
could no longer live, that he went to a great river purposing to
destroy himself by drowning.”
Again there was a murmur which covered up the speaker’s voice,
and in the midst of it Dick whispered to Edith:
 “Rather rough on you to drop in for this yarn, but it is always well
to hear both sides of a case.”
She made no answer. Her face was like that of the stone statue
against which she leant. Again the unconcerned, brassy voice of the
interpreter took up the tale:
“Zahed says that while he prepared for death in the river, in the
mist above the water he saw a picture of their and his loved lady’s
face, and Allah brought into his mind a promise which he had made
to her that if the ties of his duty were broken, he would return to be
her brother and friend. Thus he was prevented from committing a
great crime—a crime like that the man they had been speaking of
had committed, and he had returned. As all there could bear witness,
he, remembering the oaths which he had sworn to the wife who had
rejected him, had been no more to Tama than a brother and a friend.
This was not easy, since she and all of them knew that he loved her
well, and he believed that she loved him well.”
“Aye, that I do,” broke in Mea, in a voice of infinite tenderness. “I
love him more than life, more than anything that is, has been, or
shall be. I love him, oh! I love him, as much as he loves me.”
“It is so, we see with our eyes,” said the multitude.
“Well, now, he came to the nut that lay hid in the rough stone of his
story. His lot had been hard. They would all of them think it hard that
because of their duty their lady and he must live as they lived, one,
yet separated, practising the great doctrine of Renunciation, having
no hope of children to follow after them.”
The audience agreed that it was exceedingly hard.
“They thought so, and so it had been at first, yet it had come to
this, they loved their state and did not wish to change it, they who
looked forward to other things, and to a life when the righteousness
which they practised here would bring them yet closer together than
they had ever been. They were quite happy who spent their days
without remorse for the past or fear for the future; they for whom
death had no terrors, but was rather a gate of joy which they would
pass gladly hand-in-hand. That was the nut of the story; bitter as it
might be to the taste, it had in it the germ of life. Lo! they had planted
it on the earth, and yet even here, although as yet they did not see
its flower, it had grown to a very pleasant tree under the shade of
which they rested for a while and were content. Let all of them there
lay this poor example to their hearts. Let them not be discouraged
when God seemed to deal hardly with them, like that poor man, their
brother, who was dead by his own hand, since if in their degree they
also practised Renunciation, made repentance, and for right’s sake
abstained from sin, they would certainly find a reward.
“Some of them had spoken of vengeance, that thirst for
vengeance, which the other day had caused another of them to
commit murder. Let them flee from the thought of it. Their lady here
had practised vengeance upon the bodies of those cruel Arabs who
had slain his people and tortured himself, but now neither he nor she
were happier on that account. The blood of those misguided men
was on their hands, who, if they had left them alone, would doubtless
have been rewarded according to their deeds, but not through them,
or, what was far better, would have lived to repent and find
forgiveness. Forgiveness was the command of the merciful God who
forgave all that sought it of Him, and it should not be withheld even
by the best of them who still had so much to be forgiven.”
“Would you forgive that woman of yours who deserted you,
Zahed?” cried Bakhita from below.
“Surely I forgive her,” answered Rupert. “It would be strange if I did
not do so, seeing that by her act she has made me happier, I think,
than ever a man was before,” and he turned and smiled again at
Mea, who smiled back at him.
Then up in that audience stood a blind old teacher, a mystic
learned in the law, one who was beloved of the people for his
wisdom and his good deeds, and yet perhaps at heart somewhat
jealous of the new white prophet to whom they had turned of late.
“Hearken, Zahed!” he said. “I with the others have listened to your
address, and I approve its spirit as I deplore the crimes that were its
text. Yet it seems to me that you miss the root of the matter. Answer
me if I am wrong. God oppressed you; He tried you for His own
reasons; He rolled you in the mire; He brought down your soul to
hell. The wife of your bosom, she deserted you, when you were in
trouble then she struck as only a woman can. She said: ‘Beggar, be
gone; remove your rags and hideousness from before me. I will
shelter with a richer lord.’ So you went, and what did you? You did
not bow yourself before the decree of God, you did not say: ‘I rejoice
in the tempest as in the sunshine; I acknowledge that I have
deserved it all, and I give thanks now that my mouth is empty as I
gave them when it was full.’ No; you said—be not angry with me,
Zahed, for a spirit is in my lips and I speak for your instruction. You
said: ‘I will not bear this pain. My soul is hot, it hisses. I will quench it
in the waters of death. I will drug myself with death; I will go to sleep
because God my Maker has dealt hardly with me.’
“Then God your Maker bowed Himself down and spoke to you out
of heaven, by His magic He spoke to you; He showed you a face
upon the waters, the face of one who loved you still, and thereby
saved you alive. You came; you found the face which smiled on you;
you kept the letter of your oath to the false woman, but you broke its
spirit. You loved her, our lady Tama, and she loved you; you said,
both of you: ‘We renounce because we love so much. We are good
lest in time to come our sin should separate us. To gain much you
gave a little, you whose eyes are opened, you who see something of
the truth, who know that this life is no more than the oasis of Tama
compared to the great stars above, those stars which you will one
day travel.’
“Listen to me, Zahed, I speak for your instruction. I do not blame
you, nor do I think God will blame you who made you of the mud
beneath His feet, not of the light about His head. He will have pity.
He will say: ‘Mud, you have done well—for mud.’ But I am His
advocate here, to-day it is given to me to be His voice. Answer Him a
question now if you can. If not, remain silent and weep because you
are still mud. You hold yourself bound to this base woman, who
should be beaten with rods, do you not? You acknowledge it openly,
who will not take another wife. You preach the doctrine of
forgiveness to us, do you not? You say that you forgive her. Why?
Nay, be silent, now the Voice is in my mouth—not in yours. Speak
presently when you have heard it. You forgive her because her
wickedness has worked your weal; because she has brought you to
love and to honour among men.
 “Well, now; hear me and make answer. If that accursed woman,
that daughter of Satan, were to come hither to-day, if she were to
say to you: ‘I repent, who was wicked. I love, who hated. I put you in
mind of the oath you swore. I demand that you leave the sweet lady
at your side and the people who worship you, and the gardens that
you have made and the wells that you have digged, and return to live
with me in a hell of streets upon which the sun never shines, that I
may give you children to build up the pillars of your house, and that I
may grow great in your shadow.’
“Tell us now, what would you answer her? Would you say: ‘Is not
my name Zahed? Therefore I come, I come at once;’ and thereby
show us that you are perfect indeed? Or, would you say: ‘Woman,
you built the wall, you broke the bridge, you dug the gulf. I am lame, I
cannot climb; I am afraid, I dare not swim; I have no wings, I may not
fly. I forgive you afar; I do not forgive you at my side. I love you and
all mankind, but I will not touch your hand. I give to you the writings
of divorce.’ Would you speak thus, and let us see that you are still a
man of mud? Answer now the question that God puts to you through
my lips, Zahed. Or if you cannot answer, you who preach
Renunciation and Forgiveness, here is mud, smear it on your
forehead and be silent.”
Now Mea had been listening, with a great and ever-growing
indignation, to this long address, designed to set out one of those
test cases which are so dear to Eastern religious thought and
methods, and to force a holy man to admit that, after all, he is full of
error.
“I at least will answer,” she broke in, before Rupert could speak a
word. “Who is this jealous-hearted, white-headed fool that fills the air
with sand, like the Campsine blast; that stains the clear pool with dirt,
like a thirsty camel; that says the Spirit of God is in his lips, those lips
that utter wind and emptiness; that tries to convict of sin where there
is no sin, and to show one who is a thousandfold his better, a new
path to heaven? Did God then decree when a man has been rolled
in mire and washed himself clean again, that he should return to the
mire at the bidding of her who befouled him? Did God decree that a
man should leave those with whom he lives in innocence, to share
the home of his betrayer whom he hates? Is it virtue to be made
vile? Is it righteous to clothe oneself in the rags of another’s
wickedness? Make reply, you babbler, old in self-conceit, you who
think to gain honour by defeating your lord in words before his
people. Make reply, you that wrap yourself with words as with a
garment, and sit upon pride as a sheepskin, and say, wherefore
should the true be thrust aside for the false? Wherefore should my
heart be widowed, that another who sowed thistles may pluck
flowers?”
Now the old teacher plucked his beard and began in wrath:
“Do I, a learned man, one who has thought and studied long,
come here to wrangle with a hungry woman who covets the fruit she
may not eat?—”
“Silence!” broke in Rupert, in his great voice—“silence! Tama, give
not way to anger—it is not fitting, and you, my questioner and friend,
speak no more words against the lady whom in your heart you love
and honour. When that case of which you tell happens, as I pray it
may not happen, then I will take counsel with my conscience, and do
as it shall bid me. I have said.”
Now Rupert turned to Mea to soothe her, for this talk had made
her more angry than she had been for years, so angry that in the old
days that holy teacher’s life might well have paid its price; while the
audience fell to arguing the point among themselves and were so
occupied, all of them, that they never saw a woman with a shawl
thrown over her head, who thrust her way through them till she stood
in front of the platform.
 CHAPTER XXII.
EDITH AND MEA
Edith had heard it all. Not one bitter taunt, not one rough word had
that merciless interpreter glossed over. She had heard herself called
“a woman who should be scourged with rods” and “a daughter of
Satan.” She had heard herself, while Dick sniggered behind her, and
Tabitha strove to repress a smile that she felt to be unholy, compared
to mire in which, if a man rolled, he could never be clean again, and
to a sower of poisonous weeds, and this by that other hateful woman
who had bewitched her husband with her beauty. She could bear no
more; for once her bitter anger made her almost heroic. She would
face them there and then. She would demand an answer to the
question urged in such forcible language by that blind and sardonic
Arab, whose pleasure it was to pick the holiness of other men to
pieces. She hid herself in the shawl. She pushed herself through the
crowd; she stood in front of the platform, then suddenly unveiled.
Mea saw her first; some instinct of intense antipathy caused her to
look round and find her rival’s eyes. Suddenly she stiffened, falling
into that attitude which she assumed when, as judge, she passed
sentence on a criminal. Then she spoke in English, asking, although
already her heart knew the answer to the question, she who
remembered well the picture in the locket that Rupert used to wear:
“Stranger, who are you who creep into my house not asked? And
what seek you?”
Hearing her voice, Rupert looked round also. Next instant he was
clinging to the arms of his chair to prevent himself from falling out of
it, while over his face there spread a look of woe and terror, such as
a man might wear who suddenly thinks he sees a hated ghost come
to summon him to hell. His heart stopped, his sight grew dim, a cold
sweat burst out upon his forehead.
“I am the Lady Devene,” Edith answered, “and I am here to seek
my husband, Lord Devene, who sits at your side.”
By now Mea had recovered herself, for she felt the crisis of her life
had come, and her bold spirit rose to meet it. She grew quiet, quick,
resourceful.
“Is it so?” she said. “Then that old teacher, he must be, what you
call him, a prophet—or perhaps he hear you come. You want seek
Lord Devene, him whom you spit on when he was Rupert Ullershaw
Bey? Yes? Well, Zahed no look as though he wish to go away with
you, his face all change,” and she pointed to Rupert’s agonised
countenance.
“I am speaking to my husband, not to you, woman,” said Edith.
Mea shook her beautiful head and smiled.
“Woman wrong word. I great lady here; lady whom he love but no
marry—till you die, alas!”
Rupert still seemed unable to speak, and Edith positively choked
with wrath, so, perhaps to prevent any awkward pause, Mea
continued the conversation.
“Who those?” she asked, pointing with her finger at Tabitha and
Dick, who, with the interpreter, were making their way towards the
platform. “Your mama come to look after you? And him? Oh! I know.
That gentleman you love. Him for who you turn Zahed into the street.
Oh! I know, I know. Old woman down there with white head,” and
she pointed to Bakhita, who was watching all this scene with the
grimmest interest, “she have magic; she show me his ugly face in
water. He swim about in water with the tail of a snake, head—man,
heart—snake, you understand, yes? Bakhita show you some magic,
too, if you like.”
Now at last Rupert shook himself free from his faintness.
“Edith,” he said, “why have you come here?”
“Really I begin to wonder,” she answered, while she gathered
herself together, “for I don’t seem very welcome, do I? Also this
place isn’t pleasant, its inhabitants are too fond of personal remarks.”
 Then she paused and presently flung her words at him, few and
swift and straight.
“I come, Rupert, to ask you to answer the riddle which that blind
old dervish has been amusing himself by putting to you at such
length. Will you return to your duty and your deserted wife? Or will
you stop here, as the—the friend of that shameless person and
head-priest of her barbarians?”
“Please, Edith,” said Rupert, “be a little milder in your language.
These people are peculiar, and my power here is limited; if you apply
such names to Tama, and they come to understand them, I cannot
answer for the consequences.”
“I did not ask you to answer for the consequences, I asked you to
answer my question,” replied Edith, biting her white lips.
“It seems to require some thought,” said Rupert sadly.
Then he lifted his hand and addressed the audience, who were
watching what passed with wondering eyes.
“Brothers and sisters,” he said, “a wonderful thing has happened.
In speaking to you to-day about the crimes that have been done in
Tama, I told you my own story for an example. Then the teacher
yonder showed me how weak and evil I really was, and put a
question to me as to whether, should she appear and ask it, I would
take back the wife of that story, she that had wrought me evil in the
past. Now this wife stands before me, and demands the decision
which I said I would give when the time came. It has come—that evil
day has dawned upon me who never thought to see it, forgetting that
things have changed in the matter of my fortunes across the sea.
Yet, my brethren, shall I be wrong if I ask for a while to think? If, for
instance, I say that when we meet again as is our custom on this
same day of the next month, I then decide, and not before?”
“No, no, you will be right, Zahed,” they murmured, the blind old
mystic leading them with his shrill voice. “We will have it so.” More,
great men among them stood up here and there and shouted that he
should not go, that they would gather their servants and guard the
pass, and if need be, keep him prisoner, or—and they looked
viciously at Dick and his companions.
 Achmet translated their remarks, adding, on his own account:
“This people in damned nasty temper—very private people and very
fierce who love Zahed. You must not make them angry, or perhaps
they kill us all. I came here to interpret, not to have throat cut.”
Dick also seizing the situation with remarkable swiftness, was
equally urgent and out-spoken.
“Don’t show off any of your airs and graces here, Edith, please,”
he said, “I am not anxious to follow the example of our friend, the
god upon the platform, and renounce the world in a wider fashion.
That little tartar of a woman would jump at a chance of murdering us,
and she can do it if she likes.”
Only Tabitha, weary with standing, sank down on to a block of
stone, and incidentally into the lap of a native who already occupied
it, and scarcely heeding his wild struggles to be free, fanned herself
with a broad-brimmed hat and remarked:
“Ach! do not trouble. If they kill us, they kill us. It is very interesting
to hear them say their minds so well. I am most glad that we came.”
“You hear their answer, Edith,” said Rupert, “and you must
understand my position. Have you any objection to make?”
“I understand your position perfectly, Rupert, and I am quite aware
that a man may find it difficult—most difficult, to escape from certain
kinds of entanglements,” and she glanced at Mea and paused.
“Wrong word again,” murmured that lady, with a sweet smile; “no
what you call it, no tangles, only one great rope of love, too thick to
cut, too strong to break—much!”
“As for objections,” went on Edith, without heeding this melodious
and poetic interruption, “I could make scores, but since we don’t wish
to be butchered by your amiable protégés, perhaps I had better hold
my tongue and give you a month in which to come to your right mind.
Only I am by no means sure that I shall stop here all that time.”
“Don’t stop if you no like,” broke in Mea again. “Please not—the
road it always open, give you camel, give you soldiers, give you
food, and write you letter afterwards to tell you how Zahed make up
his mind. I can write very nice letter all in English, learn that at Luxor,
or if you rather, write in Arabic.”
 At this sally Dick grinned, for it pleased his wounded soul to see
Edith getting the worst of it for once in her life, and Tabitha burst out
laughing. The general effect was to induce Edith to change her mind
rapidly.
“Yes, I shall stop,” she went on, as though she had never
suggested anything else, “because I suppose it is my duty to give
him every chance.”
“Glad you stop,” said Mea, “my humble people much honoured.
Give you nice house, high up there on the mountain since in this
month you catch great fever down here and perhaps stop too long,”
and turning, she issued a sharp and sudden order whereat men
sprang up, bowed and ran to do her bidding.
“What’s that?” asked Dick nervously.
“Nothing,” said Mea, “only tell them make ready house on the
mountain and take your things there and set guard about it so you no
be hurt. Now I go. Good-night!” whereon she rose, bowed to her
people, bowed to her guests, and then, making a deep obeisance to
Rupert, lifted his hand and with it touched her brow. After this she
descended from the platform, and at its foot was instantly
surrounded by an armed guard, in the midst of which, preceded by
old Bakhita, Mea marched down the passage between the central
columns of the great hall, while to right and left, as was their custom
on these days of ceremony, her people prostrated themselves as
she passed, shouting: “Tama! Tama!”
“Himmel,” said Tabitha. “Himmel, she is charming! No wonder
Rupert do love her, like all her folks. Look how they bow. Achmet,
where is my photograph thing? I wish to take them quick.”
“Mustn’t take photograph here,” answered Achmet gloomily; “they
think that bad magic, great big evil eye. No photograph, please.”
But Tabitha had already forgotten her intention and was advancing
towards Rupert.
“My dear Rupert,” she said, as climbing the platform she dropped
into the throne-like chair vacated by Mea, and then bending forward,
solemnly kissed him upon the brow. “My dear Rupert, oh! I am glad
to see you, I cannot say how glad.”
 “I am glad to see you also, Tabitha,” he answered, “though I wish
we could have met under more pleasant circumstances.”
“Ach! you are in a deep hole,” she said, “down at the bottom of a
well, but there is light above, and who knows, you may come out
again.”
“I don’t see how,” he answered sadly.
“No; but God sees. Perhaps He will pull you out. I am sorry for
you, dear. I have no patience with Edith, and that Dick, I hate him
now and always.”
“Tell me a little about things,” he said; “we may not have another
chance.”
So she told him all she knew. Dick and Edith had vanished back
through the side door; the audience for the most part had melted
away, only a few of them remaining at the far end of the hall. As she
spoke rapidly, mixing German and English words together, although
his intelligence followed her, Rupert’s mind wandered, as was its
ancient fashion. He recalled, for instance, how Tabitha and he had
once sat together upon another dais in a very different hall far away
in England.
“You remember,” he said suddenly, “that New Year’s Eve at
Devene, the night I got engaged, and what you told me then?”
She nodded.
“You said she would breed trouble,” he went on; “you said she was
very dangerous. Well, it is so, and now—what am I to do?”
“Nothing at all, just wait,” she answered. “You have a month, and
during that time you need only see her in public. In a month many
things may happen. Indeed, I do think that things will happen,” and
once again that fateful look crept over the strong, solid face and into
the quiet eyes, the same look that he had noted years ago when she
sat with him on the dais in the hall at Devene. “God He does not
desert men like you, Rupert, who have suffered so cruelly and
behaved so well,” she murmured, gently pressing his hand. “Look!
Dick has come back and is calling me. When shall we meet again?”
“To-morrow,” he said, “I cannot see her to-night. I will not see her
privately at all till the month is up. You must make her understand.”