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The thin Press line

The thin Press line

Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 17, 2003

What would be the reaction if an Indian politician woke up one morning, decided enough was enough and charged a venerable media organisation with promoting a virulent culture of bias and a campaign to "assassinate the truth?"

It would have generated a wave of editorial outrage and, inevitably, been equated with an assault on democracy as we know it.

Yet, ironically, these were the accusations levelled against the BBC, one of the central pillars of British society, by Lord Conrad Black, the proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, in the wake of the controversy over the suicide of the scientist David Kelly. He went on to claim that the publicly-funded BBC was pathologically hostile to the Government and official opposition, most British institutions, American policy in almost every field, Israel, moderation in Ireland, all western religions and most manifestations of the free market economy."

It is, of course, possible to argue that the Canadian-born, Anglophile Press baron is an oddity in Cool Britannia. Fiercely Euro-sceptic, robustly deferential to traditional British values and uncompromisingly committed to the Anglo-American special relationship, his displeasure at the nitpicking over the undiscovered weapons of mass destruction is understandable. Yet, as the ongoing Hutton inquiry unearths more and more skeletons from multiple cupboards, it is impossible to escape the impression that in the adversarial tussle involving politicians and the media, the latter is not always a repository of truth and goodness.

This is a self-evident truth known to both public figures and journalists. Yet, had it not been for the ongoing Hutton inquiry into Kelly's death, it would have been heresy to suggest that a political spin doctor is right and the BBC wrong. Thanks to the proceedings in London, we now know that a BBC reporter's claim that Tony Blair's office "sexed up" an MI6 report on Iraq was based on unsubstantiated gossip. It also transpires that the BBC's Board of Governors stood by that report despite its shortcomings. The contention that the BBC was guilty, in this case, of "unethical journalism" cannot be convincingly repudiated.

The problem, unfortunately, is not uniquely British. India has its variant of what is often called the plantation economy. Last week, a high official from SEBI met some of the Capital's top editors to apprise them of an issue confronting the regulatory watchdog -the problem of unethical practices by journalists.

A few months ago, the Mumbai police arrested the employee of a leading media house for extorting money from a stockbroker. Although there was no follow-up by an otherwise inquisitive media, it may be presumed this was a case of attempted blackmail. And during last year's Gujarat elections, it was common knowledge that money flowed generously and sometimes not-so-discreetly from political coffers to private pockets to mould media reports of the campaign. The issue wasn't spin - a legitimate act of political projection; it was simple bribery. The mantra of that famous sixties' Editor, "Rs 5,000 to print, Rs 10,000 to not print," has, it would seem, been transmitted, inflation-linked, to another generation.

The examples can be multiplied and, indeed, every Press Club gathering is marked by raucous tittle-tattle of the latest misdemeanour involving the Fourth Estate. Indeed, if Indian politicians (and, for that matter, businessmen) were in the habit of publishing tell-all diaries a la Alan Clarke and Woodrow Wyatt, Transparency International may well be forced to incorporate additional parameters for assessing ethical standards.

Earlier this month, the newly-formed Indian Media Group met senior ministers and complained about Rupert Murdoch making a "monkey" of all norms. The foreign hand may be of expedient concern in a turf war over TV ratings but the danger is not half as pressing as the threat to the media from within. Since all self-regulating guidelines have been made a "monkey" of, the Government should accept the demand for a regulatory body and empower it to act as a watchdog against an insidious form of criminality.
 


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