Perhaps, dissent muzzled

Despite large scale protests by the journalist community the Delhi police has not yet filed a chargesheet against Urdu journalist and commentator on Iran and Arab affairs, Syed Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi. He was arrested on March 6 in connections with the February attack on an Israeli diplomatic vehicle. Kazmi had publicly taken a position questioning the immediate attribution of the attack to agencies linked to the Iran government. He was arrested soon after and has been in jail now for over two months.

 Several journalists have come together to demand his immediate release as the police has not placed any evidence before the court that can justify his detention. The police has not submitted any proof of his involvement in the attack on the Israeli diplomatic vehicle. Kazmi is a journalist of repute, having worked with Doordarshan earlier. He is well known in journalistic circles and well regarded. Several individual journalists and media organisations have raised serious doubts about the arrest, demanding a full investigation into the arrest.

 It is extremely unfortunate that the government has decided to ignore the protests, even though the Delhi police and its special cell has still not been able to frame a chargesheet against Kazmi. Journalists are always easy targets, and it is sad that more and more media personnel are being targeted in such a manner in the sub-continents. In Pakistan the situation is even worse, as several journalists have been killed, with nine deaths being reported in just the last one year. In most cases the killers are not apprehended and the investigation reaches a dead end without any arrests. 

 Journalists who speak their mind, and try and do their job with integrity and courage, are coming under pressure in almost all of South Asia where they are being targeted for reporting the truth. This has to stop, with governments and civil society working together to create an atmosphere where free and fair reporting is protected, and journalists are able to operate without fear of their lives.

Who will watch the watchdogs?

Sometimes, it is embarrassing to be called a journalist. And one such occasion was just recently, when a newspaper devoted its entire front page; unprecedented in itself, to the movement of Army troops to Delhi as a possible “coup.” The story belonged more to the ranks of fiction writers; with innuendoes replacing facts, and conjecture passing for news. Despite the flurry of strongly stated denials from the government and the Indian Army, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief stuck to the story for a day before dropping it like a burning hot potato altogether.

Several questions arise from this, and all have to do with journalism. On what basis was such a story written? Who planted it? Why did the newspaper not check it from the proper authorities within the Army and Defence Ministry? What kind of action is due?

And importantly, who is there to take any such action? The Press Council of India is a toothless & redundant body and there is not a single institute that can serve at least moral sanctions against erring newspapers and television channels; and make them apologise for baseless reports. The media is clear about not wanting any intervention by the government, and rightfully so. But in an atmosphere where a code of ethics does not exist, and basic norms of journalism are being flouted everyday, what can be done to ensure that freedom is respected and yet not violated.

Television news channels and sections of the print media have moved away from the basics of impartial reporting in the news pages, to comments and opinions that are no longer confined to the editorial pages. Reporters are encouraged to give their views about ongoing events, with information becoming secondary to opinion. Single source stories are being encouraged with the editorial guidance and control that is necessary to ensure that the facts have been checked at all levels and from all sides, slipping dramatically as news becomes linked entirely to the business rationale of ratings and advertisements. 

The situation needs to be addressed urgently. Bodies like the Editors Guild, perhaps, can rise to the occasion and play a role in effecting some kind of check on news from within. There is a need for introspection and quick action to keep news straight and narrow, instead of crossing all ethical lines. The watchdog cannot become a rabid dog, as it will then self-destruct.

Wittingly incorrigible

The media did not do itself very proud in the coverage of the Assembly elections. The spotlight of course, was on Uttar Pradesh that seemed to hold the key to the Congress party’s fortunes at the national level as well, and for the initial weeks into the campaign the media seemed mesmerised by Congress scion Rahul Gandhi. At one point it began to seem as if the “carpet bombing” by the Nehru-Gandhi clan has affected the electronic and print media more than the voters, with the former hyping the campaign to a pitch that the voters were clearly not in tune with.

For a while all possible assistance was given to Rahul Gandh to win a good number of seats in the UP election by a pliant media that refused to look beyond the Nehru-Gandhi family. After a while it was clear even to those with blinkers on that the electorate was moving towards the Samajwadi Party, and by the end of the campaign the media had clambered onto Akhilesh Yadav’s bandwagon. In the process they made the cardinal mistake of almost writing off the BSP that retains its core vote bank in the state, and SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav who still calls the shots within the party. In fact the vote in UP was for “Netaji” with his son being a contributory albeit important factor in the mood swing towards the party.

Painstaking journalism has been replaced by quick TRP driven journalism where the desire is to create media personalities that sell, and convert the serious business of elections as one line slogans. There is little to no desire to understand the nature of the constituency, the nature of the vote, and what issues are determining the swing, if any. The media follows the blitz, and often creates it to get the viewers and the advertisements, and when it gets it all wrong, starts apportioning the blame. The pollsters are wrong, is the outcry usually. Yes they are, but did they ask the 24 hour news channels to air their predictions as if these were the final results? Instead of qualifying the exit polls with a perhaps and a maybe, and a heavy dose of skepticism, journalists who are themselves no longer well informed portray exit polls as the actual results. This is bad journalism, and inexcusable at the end of the day.

The print media, always quicker to learn from mistakes than television, was not as quick to be off the mark this time. There were levels of caution evident in the analysis of the exit polls, and this time around several journalists had been encouraged to go out into the field to report from constituencies and campaign trails. This did make a difference as at least a few newspapers were able to sense the mood in UP long before the results, with scribes even reporting a debacle for the Congress from the Nehru-Gandhi bastions of Rae Bareilly and Amethi.

Hopefully this trend will continue as India moves into the general elections, with sound reportage replacing hype and journalists getting back some of their credibility in the process.

From the news theatres

The year began with another media extravaganza. In Jaipur, during the over crowded and over hyped Rajasthan Literary festival. Closing into Oprah Winfrey, the 24 hour television channels and their print counterparts, were sufficiently distracted from the Talk show queen by a bunch of mullahs demanding the head of author Salman Rushdie. The organisers who had announced his participation on their website, following a personal request from Rushdie, who did not want to be left out of the publicity, suddenly found that they had attracted the attention of a group of unemployed clerics. And before they could react, the media had got wind of it, and suddenly the Rushdie saga erupted on television screens as anchors took moralistic positions, and calibrated debates and discussions soon blew the entire affair out of proportion.

The result was that more and more clerics attached themselves to the free publicity they were getting, and soon it almost began to seem that mobs were collecting outside the festival venue to behead the author of Satanic Verses. By the time some level of sobriety sank in, and the media called off its cameras realising that the molehill was becoming a mountain of epic proportions, it was too late. The Congress, with an eye on the Assembly elections refused to come out in Rushdie’s support, the organisers backed off as they did not want the festival to be disrupted. The few who had dared to read from the banned book retreated under threat of law, and the mullahs realising that they had achieved far more than they could have hoped for, went back flexing newly developed muscles.

In the process, the media gave a beating to everything sane and sober. The literary festival was reduced to just Salman Rushdie and little else in the extended and often hysterical media coverage; the minorities  were done a great disservice as the same mullahs were paraded before the cameras with little to no effort to bring out the secular and liberal voices on camera; and in the black and white story that hogged the headlines for days, the nuances of good, sober reporting in a proper perspective were completely lost.

It is time that the electronic media stopped to introspect. And instead of chasing TRP ratings by sensationalising news, tried to bring back sober and honest and courageous reportage into journalism. Instead of turning news into drama, it would help if a sense of responsibility and accountability is exercised so that news gets the respect it deserves. The other day a woman addicted to soap operas named a prominent news channel as the only other competitor for her time, saying “they make news so exciting, it is like a drama.” She was serious in her compliment, but perhaps those managing news in television and also sections of the print media can draw a lesson from the naïve, yet telling observation.

Until next time, all the very best.

No need for a censor

The publicity given to the reported use of social networking sites like Facebook in consolidating public opinion against the government in Egypt seems to have made even the government of Democratic India nervous. So much so that Union Minister Kapil Sibal was authorised to hold a meeting with the top executives of these sites asking them to edit (a more realistic word is censor) offensive references to the Congress leadership on these sites. Fortunately, the executives did not entertain his request and the government has not succeeded in its vain, and admittedly stupid attempt, to control internet content.

It is true that there is a side to the web that is vulgar and ugly. Obscenity, pornography, communalism, racism, sheer nastiness can all be found in cyber space. At the same time, however, the internet is being overtaken by humour, great music, clever videos, irreverent and often valid criticism of political leaders as well as free and frank debate. 

There are any number of sites carrying news analysis, comments and reports on all possible issues that bring invaluable depth to discourse. In fact it has become the alternative to the mainstream, the last being controlled by the Indian government and the first finally finding an outlet for free and democratic expression.

People in troubled areas like Jammu and Kashmir, and the north east, are increasingly using the internet to pour out their problems, as are democratic forces in the rest of India. This clearly has become a source of worry for the government not just here but in other countries like China, that want to muzzle free opinion and do not look at criticism as a wake up call. Laws are formulated and exercised to curb democratic voices with a free print and television media being at best an illusion. News is blocked out on a daily basis but now those at the receiving end of state arrogance have moved to the internet sites with the result that while information might occasionally be delayed, it is certainly no longer denied.

According to reports India has a 100 million internet users, third only to China and the United States. Facebook, Twitter and Google are all amazing expressions of freedom with individuals having the facility of blocking out the offensive. 

One can only hope that good sense has dawned and the government has realised that interference of this kind is neither judicious nor welcome. One hopes that instead of imposing restraints, the government imbibes the democratic spirit of India to encourage a free and fair information flow.

Katju has a point

The war of words between the new Press Council of India chairman Justice Markandey Katju and various media organisations is unfortunate. Justice Katju’s criticism of the media would have been wholesome had he refrained from voicing his desire to acquire controlling authority of a kind that is not acceptable to journalists and their organisations. However, at the same time the media bodies would have done well to take some of the criticism on board for a deep introspection of the misuse of power, and the failure to inform as an impartial watchdog of the Indian democracy. Instead the media decided to lock horn with the former Judge, and willfully throw out the baby with the bath water.

Many of us must be wondering why in the elite drawing rooms of Delhi we are not hearing an equally loud condemnation of Justice Katju and his rather brash views. It is simply because the general public is secretly rather happy about the criticism, as they are fed up of a media that distorts the truth, resorts to sensationalism, and has little respect for sobriety and facts. And some of this evident in the personalised attack on the Judge whose demand for a regulatory authority to curb in some of the channels posing as news television, needs serious consideration.

At the same time the Judge must realise that as the PCI chairman he is dealing with the media that has been ultra sensitive about its freedom since the dark days of the Emergency. Hence, the words and phrases of a courtroom will have to be tempered, and issues put on the table for discussion without unbridled rhetoric raising hackles. He is right in arguing that the Press Council, currently a redundant body, should have some more teeth but how sharp these should be, can only be determined in consultation with journalists. Currently the PCI can only admonish and censure, the powers being far out of tune with the increasing violations of basic ethical norms.

However, apart from the question of authority the entire structure of the Press Council needs to be examined and perhaps, overhauled. It has become a defunct body and needs a larger representation of journalists and editors. More powers cannot be possible if these rest only in the one government appointee, the chairman, but can be looked at if the PCI is brought under a board of eminent persons with a say in related matters.
It is, thus, important for both sides to withdraw from the brink and instead of grand standing use the opportunity to see what can be done to make the media more accountable and ethical without government control..

Let’s clean it up

The professional media was always very shy of the word “I”. Across the world editors cautioned reporters against this, pointing out that their job was to communicate the news, inform the people, and not ever, ever try to become more important than the story itself. So, if reporters were beaten up by the police, or if they were hurt in a mob or in the line of duty, the newspaper would protest, would ensure action quietly, but would not make a hero of the individual as s/he was merely doing what s/he was in place to do. In fact, one entered the profession towards the end of a major internal debate between editors who felt that reporters should not be given bylines as this would take away from the story, and others who insisted that the facelessness was a deterrent and a byline ensured a certain responsibility. Eventually the debate settled in favour of the latter view, as reporters floated automatically towards newspapers who did away with complete anonymity.

The advent made all this appear obsolete as the first few channels launched in Delhi decided to turn reporters into stars. The advertisements, the coverage of news, the discussions were all made to revolve around the individual whose views, tears, anger, excitement made the news as much as the story itself. So viewers, with the enthusiasm of the new voyeurs, spoke more of a particular television reporter/anchor’s histrionics than about the story the person had set out to cover. This trend was strengthened over the years, with reporters on television becoming unabashed campaigners. Like the Bollywood movies, many of the television news channels turn news into drama, making it impossible for the viewers to sift between the facts and the disinformation.

BBC is one of the few television channels that tries to maintain the difference, with the result that much of its coverage is seen as professional and authentic. Fox News that seems to have become the model for most of the Indian news channels offends all sensibilities and carries out campaigns that often transcend the lines between fact and fiction, as happened during the “embedded” coverage of the US invasion of Iraq. This trend is dangerous as it takes away from the credibility of the media, with its efficacy as a watch dog sadly dented.

It is therefore, imperative to restore the credibility of the media by addressing the long list of issues that seem to have stalled its growth as the fourth pillar of democracy in this country. 

This can only be done by the media itself, with bodies like the Editors Guild perhaps, taking the lead to initiate a debate, and action to restore news to a self generated and protected pedestal. There is a great deal to clean within, and perhaps a start can be made to make the story more important than the reporter/anchor once again.