Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: November 6, 2011
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/does-the-media-need-controls/871389/0
As a humble cog in the vast and wondrous machine
of the Indian media, I want to extend my personal thanks to Justice Markandey
Katju for his recent comments. He has been berated by the Editors Guild for
his 'tendentious and offensive' remarks, but my own view is that we owe the
new Chairman of the Press Council a small debt of gratitude. It is true that
in his interview to Karan Thapar, he used unusually strong language. He described
journalists as illiterate ignoramuses who lacked 'knowledge of economic theory
or political science or literature or philosophy.' Phew! Justice Katju must
have a high opinion of his own erudition to speak this way. But, this is not
what I want to thank him for. I want to thank him for admitting publicly that
the Government of India (and doubtless all our state governments) use their
advertising campaigns, not for the public good, but to control the press.
When he told Karan that he would like the
electronic media to be brought under the Press Council so that he could deny
government advertisements to misbehaving TV channels, I could hardly believe
my ears. Those of us who cover government and politics in Delhi have known
forever that the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting uses government
advertising to control newspapers, but nobody, to my knowledge, has admitted
this openly.
If the government uses its advertisements
to coerce newspapers into printing only good news about the government, it
amounts to press censorship. It is a tactic Indian officials learned in the
days when the Soviet Union was our role model. It is a tactic that has no
place in today's world in which the Internet has made censorship almost impossible
even in totalitarian countries like China.
On a personal level, Justice Katju has done
me another favour. I have been waiting for some time to find a week in which
I could use this space to draw attention to some very bad things that have
started to happen in the media and his insulting remarks provide me with this
chance. Of these bad things, the worst is the habit that our news channels
have developed of media trials. No matter what someone may have done, they
have the right under Indian law to be considered innocent till proven guilty.
Our news channels deny them this right and this is not just wrong, it is against
the fundamental principles of justice. It is time for those who control our
major news channels to come together and evolve a code of conduct.
If some public figures are treated as guilty
till proven innocent by our TV anchors, there are others who are treated with
a reverence that is equally disturbing. Anna Hazare comes to mind as someone
who was treated this way. As for the Nehru-Gandhi family, it is as if our
TV channels had come to a secret understanding to deify them. The Prime Minister
is routinely reviled for his indecision and his lack of leadership but the
family who gave him his job is treated as sacrosanct. Why?
Without wanting to sound like Justice Katju,
I feel obliged to add that some of the so-called reporters employed by our
news channels should have no place in journalism. They rush about hysterically
from one sound byte to the next without noticing that instead of reporting
a story, they are actually doing no more than shoving their microphones into
the faces of different people. There are more than 300 news channels in India
now and not one of them seems able to go beyond the manic frenzy of 'breaking
news'. When is the last time you saw a truly memorable bit of investigative
journalism on Indian television?
Justice Katju went too far when he described
the whole media as ignorant and illiterate but nobody who watches television
news on a daily basis can deny that improvement is needed. Junior reporters
need basic training in the fundamentals of journalism before they are unleashed
on our screens. And, some of our celebrated anchors need to remember that
they do not speak for 'the people of India'.
On account of needing to compete with 'breaking
news', I am forced here to sadly admit that print journalism standards have
declined. No longer do we see the sort of investigative stories that this
newspaper was once famous for. The only way for newspapers to compete seriously
with television is for them to go deeper into a story than is possible in
a news bulletin. Sadly, the opposite has happened and, more and more, we see
reporters getting stories from 'sources' instead of from their own investigation.
But, this must not be taken to mean that we need Justice Katju to whip us
into what he considers good behaviour. He definitely needs another job.
- Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter @ tavleen_singh
