Barun Roy: Who cares for a failed god?

ASIA FILE

Bangladesh is fast catching up with the Philippines as the most dangerous place for journalists in Asia. At least 10 journalists have been killed there in the past seven years and several others have been attacked for reporting on political violence, corruption and organised crime.

In the Philippines, 54 journalists have been killed since 1986. Seven were killed in 2003 alone. Last August, one reporter in Ilocos Norte was shot at least 10 times in the back and in the head for exposing alleged irregularities at the provincial electric co-operative.

What is even more frightening, all these murders have taken place with impunity. Not one of the cases, either in Bangladesh or in the Philippines, has been resolved, nor have any of the culprits been brought to justice.

We have known reporters being killed during wars, riots and civil uprisings. These are inevitable risks of an inherently dangerous profession. What bothers us is the calculated manner in which criminals, policemen, politicians and other groups with vested-interest are targeting journalists just because they happen to cross their paths.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international media watchdog, lists 26 Asian countries, including India, where newspersons have been attacked, killed, imprisoned, or have been the victims of excessive government harassment in the name of national security or outdated press laws.

But strangely enough, protests against such abuses "" other than from media entities such as the CPJ, Reporters Without Borders and the International Press Institute "" remain muted.

In most of these countries, again including India, civil society hasn't stood up to resist attacks against the one protector of civil rights that people can call their own, the Press, as they would if factory workers got laid off or prices went up.

This was not so in earlier times, when journalism was a cause. Leaders of society themselves were often its practitioners, editorials mattered and journalists were feared, revered and respected. An attack on journalists was taken as an attack against social values.

Lord Lytton's Vernacular Press Act of 1878 drove the entire Indian nation into protest. The repression of Mochtar Lubis and his newspaper Indonesia Raya created the basis for Sukarno's, and later Suharto's, downfall. Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines couldn't save his empire by sending publishers Chino Roces and Eugenio Lopez Jr to jail.

If this is so now, there can be only one explanation: the gradual diminution of the role of the mainstream Press and the erosion over the years of its character.

"Sentinel", "Watchdog", and "Guardian" are words that don't apply to newspapers anymore. News has become a commodity as business groups have taken over its publishing, serving issues and interests that will protect their bottom lines.

I know one famous, and affluent, Indian publisher who says reforming public taste is not his job. He's happy to sell what the public wants: banner headlines on cricket; pictures of celebrities on the front page; blown-up reports of gossips and scandals; society pages adorned with scantily-clad girls in revealing poses.

News today is what entertains "" the Page 3 stuff "" and what can be traded for money. In India in the past few years, "advertorials" have come to pass as mainstream news. You pay money and you get written up. Some newspapers even have special checkers to make sure no "saleable" news item gets a free ride.

It's no wonder, therefore, that nobody takes newspapers seriously anymore. Everybody knows they are a business, like any other business in the game of making money, subject to influences, whims and biases of the forces that make the marketplace "" the government, politicians, competitors, the consuming public.

The purpose is not to serve the social cause or to uphold people's rights. Gone is the spirit of investigation, the desire to pursue a cause to its logical end. There was a time when, in the public eye, the Press was an institution as holy as the judiciary. Now holiness belongs to the judiciary alone.

The mainstream Press has lost its position of respect. It's no longer a force that society used to be afraid of. Its Achilles' heel is now blatantly exposed.

Mochtar Lubis, that legendary fighter against corruption and totalitarianism, once said: "Only a truly free Press can help build up traditions of freedom, the respect for law, public rights, and private rights, to fight against the abuse of power and against corruption "" moral and material."

Mochtar used to describe himself as "a stubborn old fool". We don't have stubborn old fools in journalism anymore, only smug salespersons promoting smart news products in alluring packages made by clever manufacturers.

Is it a surprise, therefore, that attacks on the Press are no longer viewed as a catastrophe and the society at large doesn't feel particularly disturbed by such incidents? Who cares for a failed god?