Author: Kuldip Nayar
Publication: Deccan Herald
Date: August 5, 2009
URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/16838/shameful-media.html
When we slanted news and accepted money for
putting across a point of view during the elections, we fell from professional
standards.
The other day there was a seminar in Delhi
about the allegations that during the Lok Sabha elections both the print and
electronic media not only took money from political parties and candidates,
but also extorted as much as they could. Human Resources Development Minister
Kapil Sibal, who inaugurated the session, contended that 'they' knew how the
stories were planted and paid for.
Several journalists also admitted that a lot
of money changed hands during the election campaign. Nothing came out of the
seminar, but a senior political leader told me that if a commission were to
be set up to inquire into such dubious practices, he for one would be prepared
to give evidence.
It came as a shock to me when I did not find
even a word about the seminar or Sibal's allegation in newspapers or television.
Obviously, we are all naked together in this bath. Some of us have, however,
approached the Press Council to set up a committee to go into the slush money
used during campaign. The Election Commission has also been tapped unofficially
to find its response. One member said that if payments could be proved, the
EC would consider them as the expenses of candidates.
New development
Such charges were also made during the last
Lok Sabha election. But then the quantum of payment was small and the number
of newspapers and TV channels involved was limited. This time it seems there
has been a free for all. Names of leading newspapers and TV channels are hawked
about in the bazaars.
Even otherwise, the press in India has humiliated
itself since the Emergency. With the exception of very few newspapers and
journalists, others caved in by pressure or for a price. L K Advani made an
apt remark after the Emergency: "You were asked to bend, but you began
to crawl." Since then the mystique of journalism has been lessening by
the day and now the media has been reduced to tittle-tattle.
Celebrities from the cine world or cricket
are the only personalities that count where the media is concerned. Newspapers
copy the TV channels in sensation and the latter in turn copy the newspapers
in pontificating.
I must admit that I found journalists in Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had more gumption than people in our media. Pakistan
had martial law and the journalists defied it and got lashes. In India the
Emergency at best could detain people in jail. Still, we failed shamefully.
True, politicians tend to use us. They have
their own interests to serve. But then we play into their hands. When we slanted
the news and accepted money for putting across a particular point of view
during the recent Lok Sabha elections, we were not truthful and fell from
professional standards expected in a democratic structure.
After reading newspapers or watching TV channels
I feel as if a new version of the Emergency is starting to unfold where truth
has become a relative term and there is nothing left like values. India is
not a banana republic run by and for opportunists who will stop at nothing
to line their own pockets and wield power.
We have a great heritage. Mahatma Gandhi sent
his message through a weekly, 'Harijan'. Nehru said at the All India Newspaper
Editors' Conference in 1950: "I have no doubt that even if the government
dislikes the liberties taken by the press and considers them dangerous, it
is wrong to interfere with the freedom of the press. I would have a completely
free press with all the dangers involved in the wrong use of that freedom
than a suppressed or regulated press."
He feared high handedness on the part of the
establishment, but little did he realise that one day the danger to the press
will be from within, not without. Journalists themselves will offer their
heads on a plate in return for position, pelf and privilege. Those who choose
to bend their knees in this ignoble way should consider whether they also
want to be held responsible for passing on them to the next generation.
Where is the idealism gone? Once the profession
attracted the best and the brightest who saw that they would be in the midst
of challenges facing the society. They wanted to combat parochialism, archaic
ideas, bullying by power brokers and anything that could be construed as threatening
the common man.
Take newspapers and TV channels today. They
avoid debates on issues. They present a point of view of their own or of the
vested interests. They deny a voice to those who do not tally with their bias
or prejudice. In fact, they are the most undemocratic species talking in the
name of democracy. What kind of country do they want? At what are their sights
set? Is it only entertainment? If so, they should not associate their publications
with the press.
Not long ago two reporters from the 'Washington
Post' challenged the President of the United States (Richard Nixon), ultimately
forcing him to resign because he had lied to the nation. I am not suggesting
that the press in the West is ideal. We saw how the whole Western media sold
itself to their respective governments during the Iraq war. The embedded journalists
who could only report what they were allowed were worse than our journalists
in the Emergency.
When a journalist ceases to be a journalist
and compromises, he brings down not only the ideals of the profession, but
tells upon the democratic temperament and the ethos of the nation. I feel
sorry the points made at the seminar in Delhi were not debated by the society.
But I feel more disappointed over the attitude of journalists and politicians
who know that there is a problem of lessening integrity, yet they prefer to
sweep it under the carpet.