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.