In 2024 Saad Zuberi, a highly experienced Pakistani journalist, became the first Derek Ingram Press Fellow to spend a term at Wolfson College, Cambridge. Saad, who writes below about his time at Wolfson, was able to research the interaction – not always easy or comfortable – between international journalists reporting on the Global South and the local journalists they enlist to help them.
Saad is pictured right with CJA-UK President Raymond Whitaker.
The Fellowship is open to established journalists from any Commonwealth country. It was set up to honour the memory of Derek Ingram, co-founder of the Commonwealth Journalists Association, and is run in conjunction with Wolfson College.
I have often faced the challenges of accurately representing complex regional realities that are oversimplified or misrepresented in the media …
Becoming the first Derek Ingram Fellow to join the prestigious Wolfson Press Fellowship at Cambridge this year was more than just an academic achievement for me, it was an immensely transformative and life-changing experience. The programme was a welcome departure from the frenetic, results-driven pace I’ve grown accustomed to in the daily grind, and almost felt like a luxury – a much-needed retreat after a decade of rigorous fieldwork in Pakistan. It provided an ideal environment to sit back, read, reflect, and finally embark on a research journey I had long envisioned but never had the chance to pursue.
I arrived in Cambridge with a clear objective: to leverage my years of practical experience to examine how the people, issues, and conflicts of the Global South are framed in documentary films produced by mainstream Western media. This topic is not only academically significant but also profoundly personal to me. As a journalist and documentarian working from Pakistan and Afghanistan – a region frequently subjected to one-dimensional portrayals despite its geopolitical significance – I have often faced the challenges of accurately representing complex regional realities that are oversimplified or misrepresented in the media. Documentary journalism is meant to provide context and foster empathy between subjects and audiences. Unfortunately, this ideal frequently falters in films produced by prominent mainstream networks, which shape popular narratives in our globalised and transcultural media landscape. These reductive narratives continue to distort public perceptions, reinforce stereotypes and biases about the “other”, influence collective memory, and even affect political discourse and foreign policy decisions.
Insights enlightening and troubling
During my residency, I conducted a survey that forms the foundation of my ongoing research. The insights gathered from the survey and the interviews with journalists were both enlightening and troubling. They revealed how local journalists and filmmakers are often marginalised in the international documentary sphere, with significant repercussions for the accuracy and depth of the stories being told and their impact on public perceptions.
I also utilised my time at the fellowship to develop a book proposal that compiles my experiences and those of other frontline journalists working with international media. This book will offer a comprehensive critique of contemporary documentary journalism practices, aiming to provide actionable recommendations for more balanced narratives and inclusive representation of the Global South.
Getting an opportunity to immerse myself in the academic life at Cambridge and exchanging knowledge, ideas, and experiences through intellectually stimulating seminars and memorable one-on-one conversations has been an absolute delight and privilege. Beyond the research project, the Press Fellowship also compelled me to take a much-needed pause and reflect on my own past work, my research interests and aspirations, the global journalism landscape, and importantly, my place within it.
It’s interesting how once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like these that are meant to celebrate your achievements are also the ones that make you realise how little you’ve done and how much more there is yet to do and achieve in life. Although I never had the honour of meeting Derek Ingram, I have been privileged to connect with his friends and colleagues at the CJA who knew him and his work personally, and I am deeply honoured to carry forward his legacy and impactful contributions to journalism through my research.
