The temporary shutdown of newspapers, cable TV and other media in Kashmir earlier this week seems baffling. Why is one part of India being blocked from accessing information from its other parts? Is it to control information or to hide inefficiencies?
Whatever the reason, it adds one more point against India when the press freedom index is calculated next year by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. Published annually since 2002, the index measures the level of freedom available to journalists in 180 countries based on pluralism, media independence, self-censorship, legislative environment, transparency, abuses, etc. In 2016, India ranked 133rd behind Zimbabwe and Afghanistan. "Journalists and bloggers are attacked and anathematised by various religious groups that are quick to take offence. At the same time, it is hard for journalists to cover regions such as Kashmir that are regarded as sensitive by the government," says the report.
If that surprises you, read Subir Ghosh and Paranjoy Guha-Thakurta's book, Sue the Messenger, to know of the investigative stories against a range of firms such as Reliance, Sahara and Essar that got stifled by poor laws, spineless media owners and aggressive advertisers.
Then there is a contradictory fact. Trust in the media fell from 70 per cent to 63 among the general public in India, according to the annual Edelman Trust Barometer report for 2016. The evidence is all around. Journalists are now reviled as "sickular", paid media and what not. Last year, a Union minister referred to them as "presstitutes" and got away with it.
So, are Indian journalists a corrupt, inept lot? Or are they a hard-working bunch that is being abused, silenced and killed?
The answers are not simple because cause and effect are hopelessly mixed up. The quality of discourse in the Indian media, especially news television, has been slipping badly over the last decade. It obliterates all the good work still being done by many newspapers, magazines and news channels. There are many reasons for this fall - lack of a business model, control over cable by political parties and their affiliates, poor training, failure to institutionalise the separation of editorial and advertising (read, "The nation needs to know", Business Standard, July 16). And, of course, social media. It has created ghettoes of like-minded mobs with a complete disregard for facts and a polarisation the Indian media has never seen before.
You could argue that 20 years back too newspapers with different ideologies existed. True, but people were civil to each other and opinion was rarely peddled as facts. Now, news television has become "a very vulgar dance of opinion and agenda", says Raghav Bahl, founder of Quintillion Media. In May this year, when journalist Rana Ayyub's book, The Gujarat Files, an investigation into the systemic cover-up of the Gujarat riots was launched, "one paper identified the journalists who had come for the launch as the 'secular bunch'," remembers Ravish Kumar, senior editor, NDTV.
Does polarisation necessarily lead to falling discourse quality? It is not very clear, admits Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director, research, at the Oxford-based Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Typically, "partisan polarisation is at the margins of most media environments, including that in the US. Fox News and MSNBC have limited audience share compared to ABC, CBS, etc", he said.
But they are changing the national narrative to a more insular one in the US, going by the rise of Donald Trump. Consider the UK. Though it is now proving to be factually incorrect, the victorious campaign to leave the European Union (EU) did use fears of the influx of immigrants and job losses. These were played up by the tabloid press and on social media without much questioning or analysis. As the costs of leaving the EU are becoming clearer, it is voters and not the media or politicians, who will pay the price.
So will Indians, if their news media continues to stridently take sides instead of providing reportage and analysis that aid informed decisions.
Twitter: @vanitakohlik
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
