In these extraordinary times of a global pandemic which has quite literally spread across every nook and corner of the world, from the small island states of Papua New Guinea to the military superpower United States of America, the world and people are filled with a sense of disquietude, making it difficult for all of us to cope with this precariousness. Therefore, many of us consider it wise to rely on news channels, newspapers, online news portals, websites, etc. to stay alert and aware of the disease and its consequences. But the sad state of Indian journalism which is reduced to a ‘Whatsapp University’ has created it difficult for the citizens to count on the Indian media for legitimate information and a sense of security.
Lately, it has become a gargantuan task to differentiate between ‘fake’ news and ‘legit’ news, and the onus lies on the viewers and consumers of the news. Amount of ‘fake news’ has increased exponentially, so much so that different media outlets were created to deal with the ‘menace of fake news’. India recently witnessed another lynching where three people (two of them were sadhus) were killed by a mob of over 100 men in Palghar, Maharashtra. The lynching and the angry mob were incited on mistaken identity where they considered the three men to be involved in child kidnapping.
The recent ‘panel discussion’ which turned into a shouting match by the panelists and the moderator on ‘Palghar Lynching’ completely baffled me. There were ‘news anchors’ who quoted wrong information, and turned themselves into a chest-thumping, liberal-hating, Hindu-loving and anti-opposition puppets, and used communally-charged language and hate speech in a secular, multi-ethnic, and a multi-religious country like India.
It is not as if this is the first time that I have seen a mockery being made of journalism but this is definitely the time when I began to forget what journalism stands for, why we need it, what consists of good journalism, and how salient it is for the functioning of a democracy.
I began to look at the history of Journalism and understand it, but let us first define what journalism means.
“Journalism is collation and distribution of news in print and non-print forms. The essence of the definition lies in the three inevitable cornerstones of journalism – objectivity and truth, autonomy and neutrality, and responsibility and management.”
An Overview
Print journalism dates back to 17th Century Germany, but the practice of the distribution of news was practiced in the Roman era in 59 B.C. where it was recorded in Acta Diurna through which news was hung in the city center every day for the consumption of the people. In this day and age of capitalism and Information Technology, commercialization of journalism and the abundance of fake and unreliable information are some of the predominant issues eroding the industry in India.
The principle of ‘objectivity‘ is one of the foremost lessons in journalism, and it was considered of prime importance by Lichtenberg (1996:225) especially in liberal democracies. The term ‘objectivity’ is a comprehensive term and implies a ‘rational’ perspective on any given situation, and Westerstahl’s model defines it to include several components like truth, facts, and impartiality as well. Objectivity and truth are always considered at the top of the journalistic ethos.
https://youtu.be/TBGkSDfNTRI
In addition, autonomy and neutrality have become equally important to reiterate the first principle of objectivity and truth. If a media house is not autonomous, it would eventually end up losing objectivity for either political or commercial gains. In light of these events, neutrality and autonomy became two very important pillars of the industry. Commercialization along with political pressures has threatened the freedom and autonomy of the industry in this era of capitalism.
While these threats were non-existent during the nascent stage of the industry, there was immense political pressure which prevented newspapers or journalists from reporting on parliamentary actions, criticism of the king/government/ruler, and any form of rebellious speech or language. It was with the onset and dissemination of the enlightenment principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity that the industry became much more autonomous and free of the political shackles. Today, freedom is one of the inevitable prerequisites for practicing serious and substantial journalism.
Over the last 5 centuries, journalism has become a medium to change the world, a medium to share knowledge, ideas, and has played an extraordinary role in revolutions and movements across the world. To rejig our memories, it is important we understand journalism through the most effective outcomes that have been achieved in different parts of the world where journalism challenged and even changed the status quo.
History And National Movements
Historically, journalism has played a prominent role in revolutions, movements, and mass mobilization of people against injustice. Revolutions and mobilization of people are based on an ‘ideology’ which comes from an unbiased assessment of the power centers, therefore, communication of information and ideas becomes the core; and journalism becomes an effective way to disseminate information.
The role of press and journalism in India’s freedom struggle dates back to 1857 when Payam-e-Azadi was published in Hindi and Urdu, compelling and calling people to fight against the British in the first war of independence. This was confiscated by the British, but the role of press and journalism had just begun in the larger struggle for freedom. Hindu Patriot, first published in 1853, by Girish Chandra Ghosh became a way of mobilizing people against the hostile policies of the British. One of the plays published under Harish Chandra Mukherjee in 1861 called Neel Darpan highlighted the predicament of the farmers and urged them to stop growing crops for the white traders; this led to the formation of Neel Commission by the British.
Several Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and Marathi newspapers faced trials and convictions for exposing the abuses of the British Empire in the Indian sub-continent while they informed people about the rampant abuse of power by the British. The popularity of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev can be attributed to the information that was published in different journals and newspapers during their trial, where their ideas and the injustice was being highlighted through journalism. Likewise, newspapers played an indispensable role in African and Asian countries during the colonial period, fuelling ideas and information among the people, and often questioning the colonial authorities.
Speaking Truth To Power
Journalism, in essence, implies distributing information and news but the freedom provided to journalists and media in a country reflects the democratic nature of the political system. In a democracy where people can hold their government and administration accountable, the onus placed on journalism is tremendous. It becomes an institution that keeps a check on the government practices and ensures public good, justice, equality, and freedom for its citizenry. Journalism is as diverse as the circumstances that exist in our world, and it is difficult to compartmentalize them in a few separate categories. But these are some primary classification based on methodology and outcome—investigative, citizen, news, reviews, and columns, etc.
Investigative journalism is considered to be one of the risky endeavours that only a few daredevils could engage in, as it often involves under-cover agents and working in conflict zones or hostile environments. Hannah Dreier is one such journalist known for her exceptional courage and investigative reports. She won a Pulitzer for covering three case studies of two school students and a mother who were charged and deported back to their country of origin without any due process of law. Xenophobia and the lack of justice and freedom for immigrants is the central theme in these stories throwing light on how the presence of police officials in schools infringes on the human rights of immigrant children, who are looked at with suspicion. The account presents how a few harmless activities are enough to profile a student as belonging to MS-13 without any concrete evidence or facts.
There is another investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas working with Al Jazeera, who hails from West African country Ghana. He has conducted undercover operations exposing corruption in the judiciary, sports, and ritual killing of children by witch doctors in rural Ghana, among other operations.
Journalism And Democracy
Journalism and media play an imperative role in maintaining the social fabric and the political system of a country. It does engage in advocacy, protection of rights of the downtrodden and powerless, uncovering illegal practices; and ultimately speaking truth to power. The powerful institutions in the society like the parliament, legislature, corporates, the film industry, and several other institutions and industries that run in the country often disregard the rights and liberties of the powerless; and this is where journalism and media come in. They fill in the gaps and hold all institutions (government and private) working in the country accountable.
Democracy, as it exists in most countries, is a representative form of democracy instead of a direct democracy—under which the people of a nation elect their own representatives to fulfill their demands and objectives by ensuring sound governance and administration. This indirect democracy provides power to the people once in every four or five years, and therefore, the citizens lose their control over the government. In addition, the parliamentary bills and paperwork is highly complicated, full of jargon, and often cumbersome to go through for a citizen—then what is it that remains as an effective point of check (apart from judiciary and parliament)?
Journalism becomes the third eye of the citizens; it is what enables them to exercise some amount of effective control over the actions of the government; this function is performed by informing the citizens. It is also performed in several cases by engaging in effective and rational discussions on decisions taken by the regime in power, and constructively criticizing the actions when necessary with evidence, facts, and insightful research. This is how it becomes the fourth and invisible pillar of democracy when it stays true to its principles.
While these are examples of great journalism, reiterating the true value of effective journalism, to understand the news reportage on Palghar Lynching, it becomes critical to understand the larger trend of Indian TV journalism where several news media houses often rely on fake information/unverified sources to attract people and create unscrupulous and exaggerated reports. Below are some of the fake stories that were covered by Indian news channels but were later reported as ‘fake’ by Alt-News (a fact-checking news organization):
“Republic TV reported that the Jama Masjid has not paid electricity bills to the tune of four crores which was later reported as ‘fake’. The channel deleted the Tweet without posting any tweet or video apologizing to the Imam who was mocked at for owning luxurious cars and not paying electricity.”
“In a piece of more ridiculous and bizarre news, Aaj Tak reported that Saudi men can eat their wives when they are hungry. It was earlier picked up by Aaj Tak from India Today’s Hindi Channel, but Aaj Tak way to go!”“A Times Now news anchor spent his time and energy by shouting on top of his lungs over an image that was photoshopped. This image comes straight out of the ‘Whatsapp University’.”
“A known news anchor on Zee News, known to rely on Whatsapp University more often than anyone else, spent one entire show on highlighting a conspiracy theory that was plagiarised from a Facebook Page. He started the show by talking about ‘land-jihad’ which was in relation to a recent bill passed by the government, and later went on to include education, love, finance, and films and music jihad among many other jihads.”
In several instances, media outlets become lapdogs instead of watchdogs for the government and act as propaganda machines for the central government. The compartmentalization of news channels and newspapers into different ideological camps, and the stifling of the ideals and principles of journalism does not create aware citizens but a misled population.
Some of the infamous outcomes for ‘bad journalism’ are the experience of Rwanda and the Radio Mille Collines which instigated hatred between Hutu and Tutsi population of Rwanda, resulting in the largest genocide to take place in the world. Likewise, the colonial press in Algeria during colonization created a conflict of identity for the Algerian people, as it acted as proxy propaganda machinery of the French colonizers. Fake news, whether propagated by Facebook posts or Whatsapp texts, has led to mob-lynching, communal hatred, and caste rivalries, especially in small towns and rural areas of India.
Even during this global pandemic, the irresponsible and communally-coloured reportage by several Indian news channels led to the widespread circulation of fake videos. These news channels held the entire Muslim community responsible for the spike in the cases, and turned COVID-19 into a communal issue instead of focussing on the medical crisis at hand.
While television channels and news anchors have stooped to the lowest levels of journalism in terms of quality of content—it is the social media channels and YouTubers that are providing more and more reliable and well-researched content. Akash Banerjee, Dhruv Rathee, The Print, The Wire, Caravan, NDTV, etc. are autonomous institutions or in some cases individuals/teams that are managing to hold the flag of Indian journalism amidst the dwindling voices of sanity in the Indian news channels.
It is for the citizens to realize the positive and negative impact of journalism within their society. Therefore, it is the Indian viewers who can determine the direction of Indian journalism; if they give in to the communal and hatred filled cacophony of several over the top news anchors with sub-standard reporting and news distribution, or are they looking for hard-hitting, rational, and objective reporting with sound research and writing. They are the decision-makers because ‘Radio Rwanda’ is soon to become ‘TV India’, given the increasing instances of fomenting of communal hatred.