Why Journalism in India Is Suffering a Credibility Crisis
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A JOURNAL OF THE PRESS INSTITUTE OF INDIA ISSN 0042-5303 October-December 2014 Volume 6 Issue 4 Rs 50 Why journalism in India is suffering a credibility crisis Every journalist relies at some point on anecdotal journalism, where you use a personal experience to bolster a point. Those of us who have abandoned the field to CONTENTS pontificate do it more often than most. But can one solitary • When pictures speak experience, without corroborating evidence, be enough much louder than words / to damn a movement, a cause, a man? It is also true that Sakuntala Narasimhan journalism thrives on bad news, on the exposure of those • A state’s sanitation-drive feet of clay and on iconoclasm. If everybody was perfect story stinks / Anjali Singh and did always what they promised, we’d be out of jobs, Ranjona Banerji • Will 33% reservation for says Ranjona Banerji women ever happen? / Vibhuti Patel ow then does one judge the media’s response to Kailash Satyarthi’s • The Budget seems to have Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan? Satyarthi bypassed needy women / His a child rights activist and runs the Bachpan Bachao Andolan. He is Vibhuti Patel not very well known in India – the media can stand up and take a bow here • – but has worked in the carpet industries which employ children. A member Chilling lack of sensitivity in cinema, on TV / Bharat of his organisation, Dhoom Das, was apparently assassinated for his efforts in Dogra freeing children. An article in Forbes tells us breathlessly that Satyarthi is a “flawed hero” • A community radio station because she (the writer) visited the carpet manufacturing areas with the BBA aims at empowering people / and did not see any children working in any homes as the BBA man she met Suchi Gaur and Sarita Anand had claimed. Then she says that child labour is a serious problem in India and • Will the Web complement in the carpet industry as well. Then she makes an elliptical insinuation that or supplant print media? / NGOs fudge figures to get funding. Then she says that Satyarthi, whom she did Ramakrishna Bantu not meet, is a flawed hero. • View from the Northeast / There is no corroborative evidence to prove that the Bachpan Bachao Nava Thakuria Andolan and Satyarthi are involved in fraud of any kind. Maybe they are but • this personal experience does not tell you about it. Is this an example of why The dubbing debacle / Shoma A. Chatterji journalism in India is suffering such a credibility crisis? Opinion based on half- baked facts masquerading as truth? • When fake is original and Or is it the saga over Rajdeep Sardesai and his behaviour with Indians in stealing is art / Amitava Nag New York queuing up to see Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Madison • History of Punjabi Journalism Square Garden in September 2014? / Mrinal Chatterjee (Continued on page 3) October-December 2014 VIDURA 1 FROM THE EDITOR Is objectivity no longer a sacrosanct principle? Narendra Modi has turned Publishers and editors now have after. There was a repeat telecast, out to be a different kind of the feeling that the government’s too. It was almost like an Indian prime minister, especially for the intent is to keep media away; the Government PR exercise etched media. What media houses had government’s refusal to invite to perfection, the only difference perhaps not quite bargained for media representatives for various being that those conducting it was his becoming content to get public and diplomatic functions is were some of India’s private TV along merrily without feeling the an example they cite. channels. It was an extravaganza need to court any of them. Modi of theatre, song and speech… and was known to be a man of few Indeed, referring to the restricted anchoring, the like of which I have needs, but editors and journalists access to ministers and bureaucrats, never ever seen. If only media hadn’t really thought they’d have the Editors Guild of India has asked focused its attention to covering to contend with being ignored, the Modi Government to "enlarge the more pressing issues of the day something they are not really used access and engage more actively" (public health, for instance), what to. The Modi Government seems with journalists. "By delaying the a positive change that would bring quite happy making do with All establishment of a media interface to the lives of the underprivileged India Radio, Doordarshan, PTI and in the Prime Minister's Office, millions! UNI. At a time when journalism in in restricting access to ministers India is facing a credibility crisis, and bureaucrats in offices and in Against such over-the-top when objectivity and independence reducing the flow of information at coverage, I was stunned by the lack are hardly considered sacrosanct home and abroad, the government of coverage where it was necessary. anymore (read the lead article by in its early days seems to be on When former Tamil Nadu Chief Ranjona Banerji), it does make sense a path that runs counter to the Minister J. Jayalalithaa and her in a strange sort of way to keep the norms of democratic discourse and three associates were sentenced to media at arm’s length. Modi has accountability," the Guild has said in four years imprisonment and sent no media advisor; reports suggest a statement, stressing that the public to jail, one Chennai newspaper did he has a septuagenarian public will be well served by “professional not mention a word of it on Page 1, relations officer. journalistic practices”. preferring to fill up the page with Modi’s performance in New York. Several media houses, as powerful The other side of the story is As a loyal reader, I felt terribly let as they are, are unhappy with the about private television channels down. Where had the journalism of goings-on. They seem irked by the pulling out all the stops to provide courage disappeared, I wondered. fact that Modi manages to get his virtually non-stop coverage of messages across to the masses from Modi’s speeches, campaigns, rallies, public platforms and via social etc. Ahead of his visit to the USA, Sashi Nair media, and not exclusively through the channels announced the timings [email protected] their newspapers and channels. The of coverage, the composition of their Indian people have certainly taken teams in the studios in New York to the PM’s social-media vitality in and outside, and how such coverage a big way, at least judging by the was not to be missed. The telecast followers he has on Twitter and from Madison Square Garden began the anxiousness many show to hours before Modi arrived; NRIs send him (PMO) messages online. queued up for interviews before and 2 VIDURA October-December 2014 Illustration: Arun Ramkumar Illustration: (Continued from page 1) understandable. It is the stand of Interestingly, India’s entire journalists which is more intriguing. TV media was outside Madison Sardesai got into a fight with Journalists promptly jumped into Square Garden at the time so why members of the public which led the fray long before all the facts Sardesai should be questioned, to some physical intimidation and were known. The YouTube video and that too by other journalists abusive language – by Sardesai and only started with Sardesai abusing who were not even there, is up for by the people he was talking to. a member of the public and the man discussion surely. Further, many However, the incident itself is retaliating. It seemed unlikely even were acting as cheerleaders for the masked in the Left versus Right then that Sardesai just walked up to prime minister and those were not or the Rest versus the BJP colour a man and called him names for no similarly excoriated on social media which has pervaded Indian polity. reason. But many fellow journalists or in print by the journalists who Social media has given voices to the were quite happy to believe that attacked Modi. voiceless and people on all sides of and promptly started discussing It is almost as if in today’s India, the spectrum jumped in as soon as Sardesai’s love for the Congress, his if you praise the establishment you a YouTube clip of Sardesai abusing needless provocation of the public are a good journalist but if you ask a man went viral. by asking them uncomfortable uncomfortable questions, well, then The public reaction and that questions and the need for Sardesai you’re a Congress agent. Several of the fans of Modi are both to be there at all. journalists who were present and October-December 2014 VIDURA 3 eyewitness to the incident jumped of their writings against Narendra party line and still survive? Sooner to Sardesai’s defence, even if they Modi. How much of this is political or later, we’ll have to find an answer< did work for rival media houses. philosophy or corporate cadging or someone will find it for us. They talked about how Sardesai for government favours is anyone’s was attacked, how his wife and guess. children were insulted and how he It has been pointed out that (The writer is a senior journalist and was told to “go back to Pakistan”. independent journalists and columnist based in Dehradun.) This is the last-word-defence from a few newspapers are the few the “nationalistic” pro-BJP Indian: standing against the onslaught of anyone who does not support the genuflecting journalists and media BJP should “go back to Pakistan”. owners, notably in an excellent The implications are obvious.