On the 30th of October, the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences organised a lecture-cum-discussion with Gideon Haigh, Australian writer and cricket journalist. Haigh began with a short talk on what it takes to be a journalist. A lively discussion followed.
Haigh called journalism ‘the first draft of history’. It is inherently perishable. He then said it embarrassed him when people asked him how to write. Quoting Sinclair Lewis, he said, ‘My advice to young writers is to learn how to type’. Apart from a few core skills such as talking to people and an ability to use publicly available data and archives, all it takes is the awareness of one’s potential audience and the requirements of the writing format. The basics of journalism can be learnt in just weeks, after which it is all about practice.
Journalism is a personally rewarding endeavour. It becomes a license for curiosity, as one can go and ask people questions that they wouldn’t otherwise answer. For this reason, Haigh prefers long-form journalism, as it allows one to explore a topic in its nuances. Writing less is easier, but writers tend to leave out conflicting opinions and exaggerate differences.
Haigh then turned his attention to book-writing (he has authored quite a few himself). One of the most fundamental questions is what to write a book on. Haigh wants aspiring writers to look for gaps in the bookshelf and then think about how they can fill it. He then reflected upon his experience of writing a book on Kerry Packer’s revel cricket league. Haigh was a boy when the World Series Cricket tournament was founded, and like many purists, he simply could not come to terms with the fact that cricket could be played for purely monetary incentives. Later in his life, however, he admits to have grown sympathetic to the idea. He noticed that there wasn’t much literature on unorthodox cricket formats. Hence, his book made a case for Packer’s short-lived yet transformational experiment.
One of the challenges faced by contemporary sports journalism, according to Haigh, is the proliferation of information through mass media and the internet, which threatens to make journalism irrelevant. In a lot of cases, viewers have a superior grasp on sports events, as they watch them on television. Thus, journalists must try to analyse how their writing will add value to people’s knowledge of the event. One has to have a discerning eye to bring out the nuances of sport. Journalists can write about the commercial underpinnings of cricket,as it adds a new dimension to people’s understanding of the game. For example, an insider perspective about the IPL Auctions can shed light on how the tournament is run.
The participants had quite a few questions for him. One of them wanted to know how to write on topics one has no prior idea about. Haigh replied by saying that a lack of prior knowledge is a great strength. One comes in with a clean slate, without any preconceptions or prejudices about the topic at hand. Rigorous research is a must, and a writer must be able to weigh available evidence and come to an informed, balanced conclusion. Haigh then talked about how his book The Unspeakable Crime came into being. The book concerns the Australian equivalent of Roe v Wade, the judgement by the U.S. Supreme Court which legalised abortion. Haigh knew very little about the topic before starting to write the book, but this was not a handicap at all, he believes. Sometimes, prior ignorance can be refreshing.
Finally, Haigh was asked whether his books on cricket earn more than the non-fiction ones, to which he replied in the affirmative. However, he notes that his favourite books have been the least successful ones. It is almost as if his cricket-writing cross-subsidises his non-fiction interests. A book on Warne would be much more popular than one on abortion, but the latter was, for him, far more intellectually stimulating.
Report by Avinaash R.
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