When geopolitics meets journalism: Shamim Zakaria says media often oversimplifies complex global relationships

 Shamim Zakaria speaks to Global Business Journalism students in the Hot Topics course. (GBJ photos by Rick Dunham)

By TATIANA USAKOVA

Global Business Journalism reporter

Journalists too often oversimplify complex geopolitical situations, turning nuanced international disputes into simple binaries of right and wrong, China-based commentator Shamim Zakaria told Global Business Journalism students at Tsinghua University.

Zakaria, a native of India who also has worked and studied in the United Kingdom and China, said media coverage of international relations is dominated by superficial reports and stereotypes that rarely explore the underlying causes of events and often simplify the perceptions of countries and peoples.

As a case study, he discussed the complicated matrix of relations between India, Pakistan, the United States and China. Those four nations share a web of overlapping rivalries and alliances, but many stories rely on simplified descriptions of each nation’s characteristics.

“When it comes to Pakistan, it's [depicted] like a terrorist state,” Zakaria told students in the Hot Topics course. “Or India [is described] as the world's largest democracy.”

Shamim Zakaria: "Nationalistic feeling can overwhelm the fact checking, and ... journalists basically must be very, very careful." (GBJ photo by Rick Dunham)

The United States is often portrayed in media reporters as a defender of freedom, while China is accused of violating human rights.

“The thing is, none of this 100% true,” Zakaria said. “Like these descriptions may contain elements of truth, obviously, but it's also flattened the complex societies into a single story cliché. And we need to avoid clichés.”

Zakaria said that journalistic reliance on binaries – one side is good, the other is bad – leads to a biased work product. That kind of reporting that echoes nationalist views of one side of a conflict, empowering propaganda.

Social media accelerates the spread of misinformation, and fake videos exacerbate geopolitical conflicts, he noted. Media platforms’ algorithms – which reward extreme views and sensationalistic videos – contribute to the polarization of content, complicating the work of journalists, who must resort to fact-checking to counter widely held misconceptions.

Zakaria said that journalists reporting on international relations often underemphasize critical analysis. While much foreign coverage includes information from original sources, the bulk of stories fall short in providing historical context or fact-checking of official sources. As a case study, Zakaria cited the conflict between India and Pakistan in the Pulwama-Balakot region in 2019. Indian media emphasized its military successes, exaggerating the number of casualties, while Pakistani media emphasized its retaliatory actions and denied Indian reports of damage.

“The problem was nobody exactly knew what happened,” Zakaria said. “So we just knew that there was an attack happening, and there was a counter, but exactly the number of casualties, where it exactly happened, what happened, it was just lost in this high fanaticism overflowing in both media.”

The lesson: good journalism can fall victim to nationalism if reporters are not vigilant.

“The case illustrates, basically, how nationalistic feeling can overwhelm the fact checking, and why journalists basically must be very, very careful,” he said. “You should tread carefully when you are covering this sort of crisis between two countries.”

Shamim Zakaria: "We need to avoid clichés.” (GBJ photo by Rick Dunham)