Is it time to redefine what journalism means?

Broken News

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/09/24/is-it-time-to-redefine-what-journalism-means

At a time when we have witnessed mockery of what we prided in calling ourselves – a parliamentary democracy –  when thousands of farmers are protesting the passing of bills that were rammed through the parliament, when the precious few rights that the Indian working class had have been snatched away by new laws, when Covid-19 continues its deadly dance of death and despair, when incessant rains are bringing even big cities to a standstill, not to speak of remoter areas, what is the big story on India's mainstream electronic media? No prizes for guessing that it continues to be Sushant-Rhea-Kangana-Payal-Anurag and now even Deepika. 

Enough has been said and written about this determined effort of India's mainstream electronic media to keep its gaze firmly on a non-story, defying even the most basic norms of what constitutes journalism.

 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is still hearing arguments in the Sudarshan News case on whether regulation of some kind is needed to rein in electronic media. The outcome will not necessarily solve the problem because the trajectory of the electronic news media in India has gone so far in one direction, based entirely on what sells, that it is difficult to imagine a time when some kind of equilibrium will be restored. 

 

The important question raised by this case, in my view, is whether what appears on channels such as Sudarshan News can even be called journalism. Do such media outlets even pretend to follow any of the ethics, values or principles that one is taught comprise the bedrock of journalism in a democracy? How then can what they broadcast be equated with what appears in media outlets that are still trying to do journalism as it was meant? Should such channels even be considered as journalistic enterprises? Or do we need another term to define them?

 

Also, by pegging our hopes on a ruling about one channel that is at an extreme end of the spectrum, are we missing the larger picture of where journalism stands in India today, and whether it can be set right merely by devising ways to regulate it?

 

I would still argue that a reasonably large section of the print media, the majority of the digital news platforms as well as a handful of TV news channels follow the rules of journalism as we have known them. That the attention-seeking hijinks of the popular TV news channels cannot make us throw up our hands in despair and give up on the project of providing the people of this country fair, objective, coherent, relevant and credible journalism.

 

The real danger to this kind of journalism in India, I would argue, lies not with these TV channels, but primarily with the attitude of this government and its different arms. Just as it has demonstrated its complete disregard for any notion of fairness or established procedure when it comes to the functioning of the parliament, we cannot and should not expect that it will push back in its desire to ensure that the media sings its tune.

 

You only have to witness what has been happening in Kashmir this last year to see how this can, and probably will, happen. Kashmiri journalists have to keep reminding us that journalism is not a crime. Yet, for doing their jobs as journalists, they are being surveilled, harassed, questioned, beaten up and imprisoned in Kashmir.

 

This article by Priya Ramani in Article 14 is a devastating recounting of the way in which the very process of doing their jobs as journalists has been rendered a hazardous occupation in Kashmir. Ramani spoke to a cross-section of journalists in the state, women and men. Journalists told her that they were asked why they didn't do "positive journalism" or when they questioned the actions of the state against journalists, they were told, "Instructions have come from the top”. Bashaarat Masood of the Indian Express said it had become "impossible to report from Kashmir". These are highly qualified, experienced journalists who have worked in the most stressful conditions for years. And this is what they are saying today.

 

Perhaps the most telling quotation is from Qazi Shibli, the founding editor of The Kashmiriyat, a news website. Shibli spent nine months in jail, charged under the Public Safety Act.  He was released in April. He tells Ramani, “They’ve polarised the public of the nation into nationalists and anti-nationals. They've divided us into good journalists who follow their line and bad journalists who don’t.”

 

That just about sums up the state of the media in India today. Those who question, expose, basically just do their jobs and necessarily do not follow "the line" of the government are "bad" journalists, liable to intimidation and even arrest. According to a report by the Rights and Risk Analysis Group released in June, 55 journalists were arrested, booked, summoned, assaulted and threatened during the lockdown that began on March 24. All this for reporting on what was really going on in the country during this pandemic. Of these, 11 were from Uttar Pradesh.

 

The short point is that in the process of defanging every institution that can act as a check on the power of the executive, this government has not spared the media. While the majority of media houses have fallen in line following the slightest nudge, or voluntarily because they are convinced that the current regime is the best thing that could have happened to India, the real price is being paid by individual journalists and the smaller, independent publications and websites that are doing what they are required to do in a democracy. 

 

What happened in the parliament last week is an ominous signal of what more will follow. Even the pretence of following procedures and democratic norms has now been set aside by the government. To hope then that a judgement or some idea of self-regulation will salvage the situation of the Indian media is probably unrealistic.

 

We are witnessing today in Kashmir what the state can do to make the media toe the line without imposing censorship. This is the pattern that will be replicated in the rest of the country, even as exhortations about respecting the freedom of the press will be pronounced from the pulpit.

No lessons learned

When television voyeurs enter hospitals, apart from the assault on the privacy of injured people, people stomping around emergency wards obstructs the work of doctors and nurses. As responsible individuals, surely it is not too much to expect from mediapersons that they recognize this. Yet, it is amazing how the feeding frenzy after a disaster knocks out all common sense, says KALPANA SHARMA
Posted/Updated Friday, July 15 11:10:14, 2011
Second Take Kalpana Sharma    The government has learned some lessons from its handling of previous bomb blasts. Or so we were repeatedly told by television news channels during their blanket coverage of the three serial bomb blasts that hit south and central Mumbai on July 13, killing 18 people and injuring 131. But the question that needs to be asked after watching the news coverage is: have our TV news channels learned any lessons from coverage of previous blasts? Apparently not.   Within minutes of the serial blasts, the Home Ministry in Delhi apparently confirmed that it was a ‘terror attack’. This led to an almost instant frenzy of speculation: what kind of bomb, whose signature did it have and who was responsible. A little over an hour after the first reports appeared on the channels, Headlines Today was already claiming that the Indian Mujahideen could be responsible for it. Other channels were only a little more circumspect. While they aired statements by Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik saying repeatedly that it was too early to say who was responsible and that he would not speculate, their anchors continued to ask leading questions and to do precisely that: speculate.   And even before the first bits of forensic evidence that would indicate the nature of the bombs planted in the three locations had been collected, the guesswork about the bombs had begun on the news channels. Was it a crude bomb? Was RDX used? Was it an IED?    This clearly was not enough to fill the time. So TV crews were dispatched to the hospitals where the injured had been taken. After previous such incidents, there had been considerable discussion within the media about the use of gory pictures depicting the injured, or dead, individuals. This time again, the camera’s lens sought, and telecast, the most intrusive shots of people who were in no condition to object.   Amongst the English news channels that I watched, Headlines Today was the worst. It telecast scenes from the hospitals where people were being taken for treatment. No effort was made to mask the individual’s face or his naked body as doctors and nurses were shown treating the person. How can hospitals allow such intrusion and how can television channels justify such an invasion of the privacy of an injured person? Was this done because these were nameless, ordinary citizens and not the rich and the famous? Would anyone have dared to do the same if a well-known person had been injured?   After the August 2003 twin blasts at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazar, the Dean of J.J. Hospital, where many of the wounded had been taken, had put a blanket ban on all television channels entering the wards. Only after some persuasion did he allow some of us print journalists to go in, but without photographers. This time, it was obvious that the hospital authorities did not take quick enough action to stop television voyeurs from entering the hospital.    Apart from the atrocious and unacceptable assault on the privacy of injured people, the fact of so many people stomping around emergency wards obstructs the work of doctors and nurses. As responsible individuals, surely this is not too much to expect from the men and women of the media. Yet, it is amazing how the feeding frenzy after a disaster knocks out all common sense.   No, the news media never seems to learn. Well-known documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma had this to say during a discussion on Facebook following these blasts: “On 7/7 I was out filming. Post 26/11, I was out filming again from the 29th onwards. It was horrifying to see TV crews shooting on the streets of my city both during and after -- the sheer theatrics, the uncouth, insensitive questions, shoving people, trying to get that dramatic frame or sound bite. I wasn’t the only one repulsed. So widespread was the revulsion that four days later, many victims or their families just refused to speak to any TV crews! In fact, for the first time in my work life, I was welcomed into homes and hospital wards only because I said -- we're not TV; we are documentary film-makers! And really for the first time, I didn’t need to explain what a documentary is and no one asked which channel will it be shown on...”   On the morning after, once again the government came in for some praise, at least for its media management. Apart from the regular briefings by Home Minister P. Chidambaram on the previous night, there was a televised press conference addressed by him and the Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chauhan the next morning. Unlike previous occasions, the government seemed to have understood the importance of being accessible to the media. Yet, despite Chidambaram pleading with the media not to speculate and to give investigating agencies time to arrive at some conclusions about who was responsible for the attacks, several channels had begun their own scenario building in real earnest.   Once again, Headlines Today trounced the others. It had named Pakistan the night before and continued to do so the next day. It invited two former RAW officials to give their views, Jaydev Ranade and Col. R.S.N Singh. Both spoke of the need for “pre-emptive intelligence” but Singh went further when he said India needed to “strike the heart that breeds such terrorists”. Not hard to guess which country he had in mind as he continued about the “proxy war”. Are these television guests handpicked to say what the channel wants its viewers to hear?   What stood out as different about the coverage of these blasts – as compared to the serial blasts on Mumbai’s suburban trains in July 2006 – was the role of ordinary citizens in providing visuals to the channels. Several channels were able to telecast images of the bombs going off thanks to cell phone users capturing the moment on their phones. Yet the dangers of using such footage without whetting were evident when shots of the body of a woman appeared in the initial telecasts. Fortunately, good sense prevailed and that image was smudged in subsequent telecasts.   Twitter and other social networking mediums also apparently played a role in conveying information, channeling offers for help and appealing to people to stay calm. This too is a new development as of the last couple of years. The Internet did help Mumbai’s beleaguered citizens during the downpour and floods of July 2005 but cell phone images and Twitter feeds are an advance on that. Finally, this might sound like a pet peeve, but I still cannot understand why Delhi-based anchors of television news channels cannot get the pronunciation of names of places right. Zaveri bazaar has been distorted to ‘Zaaaveri’ bazaar, and that too after their own correspondents on the spot are saying it as it should be said: ‘Zaveri’ with a soft ‘a’.