"It is the role of good journalism to take on powerful abusers, and when powerful abusers are taken on, there's always a bad reaction" says Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks - the activist organization that publishes secret documents and classified government information.
The past week has seen several 'bad reactions' about the press and journalists emanate from the corridors of power. I wouldn't say abusers of power, because unlike Arvind Kejriwal who asserts without substantiation that 'all' media is paid, basic journalistic etiquette demands that tempting as it may be, we must refrain from painting and tainting 'all' politicians with the same brush stroke. However, within a span of the last one week we've heard many more such uncharitable, almost retributive remarks from politicians coming to fore about the press. Not surprising given the critical role the media has played in unearthing numerous scams recently.
The Home Minister has said he wants to 'crush' the electronic media for spreading false propaganda though he later backtracked on it. Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who is incidently a IIT graduate(rare for a politician) has questioned the intellectual capability of journalists who he mourns are only graduates (He has forgotten quite conveniently that no such educational prerequisite exists to enter politics) while ex-Army Chief Gen V K Singh has called us 'presstitutes'.
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If it seems like the public discourse is getting increasingly uncivil and out of bounds, make no mistake, this tug of war between journalists and politicians has been brewing for a while. What has changed recently is the nastiness quotient that has amplified and is being manifested palpably ahead of the elections.
In the past we've seen worse instances of barefaced violence and harassment of scribes by political parties - offices of news outfits like the IBN network being ransacked by Shiv Sainiks for instance, or editors like Nikhil Wagle being beaten up and his face blackened. More recently, Scroll.in reports that Vidya Subrahmaniam, a journalist with The Hindu was threatened and intimidated after she wrote a piece on Sardar Patel that allegedly criticized Narendra Modi. As was Vinod Jose, Executive Editor of the Caravan Magazine after he published a cover story on Swami Aseemanand. No surprise then that media watchdog 'Reporters Without Borders' has ranked India an abysmal 140th out of 180 countries on press freedom.
But if one ignores for a moment the attempts to muzzle, the threatening tone and abrasive language used by politicians to describe the press, not all of what is being alleged by the netas, is off beam. Much as we hate the pot calling the kettle black, and must stand up against any attempts to blackmail - there is no doubt even in the minds of journalists today that something is structurally wrong with the media.
Is the press indulging in propaganda like Shinde alleges? Yes, several outfits are. There is growing disquiet in newsrooms as editors, increasingly under pressure from managements backing certain political parties, are told to tone down their opinions, hold back stories or remodel their views to drive agendas. As a result we've seen several high profile editorial exits and respected senior journalists openly mourning the death of independent press on social media platforms.
Is 'paid' media a figment of Kejriwal's imagination? No it isn't. A Press Council subcommittee report drafted by eminent journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and K Srinivas openly named the biggest newspapers and channels in the country for having indulged in such practices a few years ago, saying "the pernicious practice of paid news has become widespread across media (both print and electronic, English and non-English languages) in different parts of the country." The phenomenon seems to have permeated into polling agency offices also, as the recent sting by News Express showed how representatives from C-Voter which was contracted to do a series of opinion polls for the India Today magazine and Headlines Today television channel were caught providing data for a price.
Corporate ownership and profit-led biases are other challenges the media faces. Dig no deeper, we know the media is in trouble, when a Managing Director of one of the biggest media conglomerates in the country admits to a foreign magazine - ‘We are not in the newspaper business. We are in the advertising business'. Herein lies the crux of the problem. The commoditization of the press by corporate owners who are often seen as being subservient to one or the other political establishment, in the business not to generate social capital and serve public good, but for profit and power. The biases of such media outlets too are governed then by money rather than ideology, and their coverage determined by how many new political friends can be won over, rather than how many enemies because of an editor's proclivity to report the truth and rub politicians off the wrong way.
"At media firms owned by corporate houses, where is the line dividing boardrooms and newsrooms? There also is the question of editors’ independence from boards. That is, are bottom lines driving bylines?" questions Rahul Khullar, Chairman of TRAI.
These are evidently, apart from political blackmail and intimidation, equally, if not more critical issues that the media faces today. Because while there is indeed a 'bad reaction' when powerful abusers are taken on, the media of today is more dangerously disposed to never taking on powerful abusers, or taking them on selectively - at the behest of another powerful abuser.
So as we rightfully admonish politicians for their spiteful remarks, it would do good to address this crisis brewing at home and strengthen our faltering fourth estate.