The hallmark of the profession of journalism is the spirit of inquiry. You remove the curiosity-itch from a journalist ‘ s psyche and his place of work becomes a mortuary with he being the lifeless resident there. Of course, there is the other extreme of this urge becoming a raging obsession so much so that objectivity and credible evidence are thrown to the winds and the printed words take on a yellow hue.
But that is one problem the media has to reckon with by itself if it values credibility and which it will be forced to by its own readership or the lack of it. Under no circumstance would it be tenable or acceptable for the media to shelve the spirit of inquiry simply because of a misadventure here or a mis-judgement there.
Worse is the case when the alleged error of reportage is a matter of debate, falling as it does within the permissible limits of analysis and surmises with no motives involved. And worst is the scenario where the media is being censured, curtailed, cornered and then committed to apologies, oral as well as written, with a warning to be wary in future. All newsrooms will then become veritable mortuaries with journalistic corpses dishing out soulless stories.
It is unthinkable for the media to concede that any public institution or individual could be beyond recourse or above criticism. One may employ restraint or show reverence in practice but it is well nigh impossible to declare so as a blanket guarantee. This is because by its very genetics any media has to be inquisitive and the biggest enemy for such inquisitiveness is the presumption of impregnability or infallibility of a subject under study, howsoever sacred or powerful it is purported to be.
And when the Constitution of the country is itself subject to criticism and comment it is indeed puerile to believe that its offshoots are beyond the gaze of the critical eye. It is the bounden, suo motu duty of the media to keep the populace informed and mould public opinion and the biggest threat or obstacle comes in the form of intolerance, which is only expected.
But any kind of intolerance has to be fought, if not out of indignation at least for the sake of self defence, and the perpetrator of such intolerance, be he even God, has to be exposed, even if it entails getting incinerated by the proverbial Third Eye. The moment the media surrenders this faculty to be critical to the forces of intolerance, it loses its very purpose of existence. This is not to say that those in the media are saints endowed with the moral power to sit on judgement. But the profession most certainly is saintly and it ordains its practitioners to perform the ritual of informing religiously.
Although politicians and the establishment have always been at loggerheads with the media, recent tendencies displayed by another watchdog also seem to strike at the very foundations of the Fourth Estate.
Emotional intolerance prompted by indignation rather than dis-passionate and enlightened interpretation of law and justice seem to be gaining ascendency, particularly when dealing with the media. It is a matter of grave concern that the feeling of hurt, call it contempt, could be so sweepingly invoked and used not only as a camouflage to shield itself from even cursory scrutiny but also to deliver body blows to the media. And the media can’t even fight back in this unequal battle.
It is nobody ‘ s case that the constitutional watchdog has to stand the test of journalistic certification but at the same time it is also difficult to stomach pompous announcements like ‘ no body in the world ‘ can question the conduct of that watchdog. Indeed, owing to such untenable proclivities the ground is being laid for a clear confrontation between two of the pillars of democracy; while the one with its genetically programmed spirit of inquiry, is unlikely to take ‘third party’ strictures lying down, the other which is increasingly showing signs of ‘ press paranoia ‘ , can truly be expected to take offence and brandish the contempt-weapon at the drop of a hat. And there is no clear LoC here!
There is a more sinister angle to the ensuing trend. Mere oral apologies rendered before the offended person are passe. After dire warnings that the affected person who also happens to be the adjudicator could ‘ do anything ‘ to the hapless and defenceless ‘offender’, these latest media tormentors go on to order that the newspapers carry the apology on the front page forthwith and then submit them as a symbol of compliance, also forthwith.
Now, this is not only a calculated assault nay insult to the profession of journalism but at a baser level, is a clear usurpation of the legitimate rights of the Editor of the paper, after undermining the same. Now, how could any ‘ outsider ‘ decide what should appear on the front page of the next day ‘ s newspaper? For that matter even the Editor himself, unless he is Nostradamus incarnate, would not know what would be on his front page tomorrow, in order to give an assurance today itself.
What if the day turns out to be very newsy with Indo-Pak war breaking out or Osama being caught or some top leader getting assassinated or all of these happening and the pressure on Page one is mounting like the tension along LoC? Should the editor be pressured into throwing all his professional wisdom, rights and news priorities to the dustbin just to accommodate a third party stricture, which too has been put beyond appeal? What about the larger accountability he has towards his readers? Could there be anything more ignominious for a newspaper editor than to be dictated to by a super-editor from outside, for the sole reason that the former had offended the sensibilities of the latter – something that remains in the realms of the abstract and the latter in turn thinks he is vested with unbridled powers to dictate to the former, which again is debatable?
Even if one were to accommodate the piqued party’s preference for page one, yet how does it justify the deadline of ‘ tomorrow and not later ‘ as is being meted out by very learned lamentors? Is not the editor entitled to some time, say a week to tender apology, on the front page to be sure, but keeping in mind the daily flow and pressure of news or the right to appeal to a higher fora? Will any of the other pillars put up with such battering at its very base? For instance, will a court oblige if someone were to ask for a judgement within a time frame, because it would be inconvenient later for the litigants? The argument may sound ludicrous for its odious comparison but the underlying question of fairplay is the same.
Unlike the courts, the media do not rely on hard evidence or Exhibits A,B, C and X to write its stories. An element of surmise and conjecture is unavoidable and this most certainly poses the greatest challenge to the media, a professional hazard that one learns to live in dread of. But errors of judgement are also possible in other institutions, even in the judiciary where objective interpretation of law is supposed to be the sole beacon. Otherwise why would decisions of one court get wholly reversed by a higher court, when there is absolutely no change in the facts of the case or the evidence?
This being so, how can anyone hide behind the contempt-camouflage and put himself beyond recourse, not to mention endless sermonising and disproportionate penalties! Why go nuclear when just a pistol shot in the air would have sufficed? Again, how can the right to appeal be denied and why the unseemly hurry in getting apologies published forthwith and so desperately at that?
Any criticism of a decision will certainly reflect on the decision maker too in these days of info-boom where even the court clerk and duffedar ‘ s name are not left out of print and now, if they were to get touchy about it, the courts would be flooded with frivolous litigation, many of which may be contempt cases with the courts themselves as plaintiff! Of course, this does not absolve the media of responsible reporting and in no way can it be deemed as a license to scribble any thing that comes to mind.
But just as the media should know its limits, the other pillars too should. But first, a limit has to be clearly set! And with due apologies to all Honourable men, it must be stated that only ‘someone in the world’ will have to do it!
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