In public interest

BY s r ramanujan| IN Law and Policy | 25/10/2006

S R Ramanujan

"Public interest" is a free-for-all phrase which  has been used, misused and abused by various interests in our democratic polity. Britain¿s highest court has held recently that newspapers best defence against laws of defamation is "public interest". This landmark ruling, according to media watchers in England, would open the floodgates to the media to violate right to privacy and get away with it in the name of "public interest". According to the Hindu¿s London Correspondent, the British media have "unanimously hailed as a ¿victory¿ for free press and a long overdue kick in the teeth of Britain¿s fusty libel laws, five of the country¿s most senior judges have granted journalists the right to publish defamatory allegations as part of their duty to raise matters of public interest. They held that fear of libel need not discourage them from reporting issues of substance and public importance so long as they acted in good faith and with responsibility".

How will the courts in Britain decide on a libel case whether a particular report was in public interest or not? It is believed that courts would definitely go into the "source of information" for a story and whether it has been properly checked and rechecked, but the "overriding test" would be public interest and the editor¿s good sense. Well, this is alright  for serious newspapers that have a track record of decades of responsible and objective journalism. They do not have to face the nightmares of libel when they expose certain public figures in the overall interest of society. What about British tabloids whose role is quite notorious in exposing the private lives of public figures, even prying into their bedrooms? (Not that we don¿t have that brand of journalism here, we even have tabloid channels!) Will the ruling give a free hand to the British paparazzi? It is hoped that it will not be a shield for scurrilous reporting. But you can¿t say for certain.  Sensationalism is the staple input for British tabloids for their zooming circulation which is rubbing off on our channels too for TRPs. Will the ruling boost their morale and make them go for even more scurrilous reporting and cheque book journalism, another name for kiss-and-tell journalism? One has to wait and see.

Our desi editors and publishers who have been sending quite a number of hours attending courts in various parts of the country in libel cases filed in distant courts just to harass them must be envying their British counterparts. For the British media the ruling must naturally be a great relief and this is what the London Times had to say in its editorial, as reported in the Hindu. It (court ruling) sent out a signal that "Britain¿s notoriously strict laws must not be used for "forum shopping" by those hoping to win a libel suit here that would not succeed in America or elsewhere".

When this is the scenario in Britain, interestingly, around the same time, our Supreme Court has come out with its random observations on the "stings". Indian journalists, while still reeling under the impact of various draconian laws of libel and contempt, might be a worried lot over the apex court¿s observations on "sting operations" and their "outsourcing" It was not the contention of the Supreme Court that there should be no public interest journalism, but it should not be on financial considerations. The court has not come to any definite conclusion and it wanted to examine "one day" whether the sting operations are in public interest or to make money.

However, the Indian Express focused on the real issue of "stings". "Even if all sting operations were in-house efforts of established media organizations - many sting stories in fact are - the fundamental issue won¿t go away: the acceptability of creating false contexts and providing real inducements and essentially duping the target. That this is way inferior to reporters and editors doing the real hard work, painstakingly breaking a story, should be self-evident".

This is a Catch-22 situation for the Indian media.  Having become a capital intensive industry, it has to make money to survive, and if it is only to make money, irrespective of the means, it will sacrifice its great shield "public interest" - which the British media is going to sport -  at the altar of TRPs and ABCs. As if all this is not enough, the Information and Broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi is breathing down their neck with a forked tongue. On one hand he wants to bring in the  Broadcast Bill which according to media practitioners is "draconian" and on the other hand he wants to suggest a code for self-regulation. But the media does not seem to be in a hurry to self regulate.

contact: s_ramanujan9@yahoo.co.in