In you, we distrust
With the Radia tapes, journalistic ethic has hit rock bottom. What has always been practiced by the media in private is now out in the public realm.
We need a new metric to gauge good journalists. Visibility or access alone will not help
, says PRITI PATNAIK
_150_200.jpg)
Indian media is unique. It will lose readers not because they will soon move online, but because they may not trust the media very much. By losing credibility, they stand to alienate their readers, even before such a natural transition comes about.
As if the online challenge was not enough to grapple with, traditional media has neatly worked out a credibility problem. Indian newspapers and perhaps, broadcast news (notwithstanding the entertainment element) do not have much time left before the online germ that has decimated traditional media in the West, infects them. The sustainable online business model is a challenge. But the greater challenge, before monetizing the online model, is restoring the trust of the public. A quick poll will tell you that readers love the media as much as they love their politicians. We have almost become like bankers in the West, loved to be hated.
Young Indians have a mind of their own. They are innovative and believe in doing things themselves. There is no reason why India, which is already high up on the social innovation index, will not embrace media entrepreneurship. The truth is, not many youngsters read newspapers or watch news and if they do they are beginning to be deeply skeptical. With a number of competing objectives including making their presence felt on social networks, poring over newspapers does not seem to be their idea of getting "informed". They care less about innovation in advertising and even lesser about innovation in editorial. The youth spend on an average 97 minutes a day on television, 70 minutes on the internet and 32 minutes reading a newspaper. This is according to the National Youth readership survey 2009, conducted by the National Book Trust and the National Council of Applied Economic Research.
In the not-so-distant future, people will continue to get their own news ??" whether from self-obsessed journalists or otherwise. My guess is India’s press will survive. This country has survived worse. People will do their own thing through websites, blogs, podcasts and powerful social networks and leave media machinations to remain as fiefdoms of political parties and companies.
There are enough people within the media who still believe that the media is the Fourth Estate. Never mind media magnates who believe newspapers to be great advertorial products capable of generating revenues that are invested far and wide in order to become a ubiquitous powerhouse. Just as regulators need to be smarter than those who are regulated, journalists need to be at least as smart as the people they are reporting about and the people they are working for.
Like others, I listened to the Radia tapes partly in horror, partly knowing what was coming next. I knew the intonations and the laughter in a few conversations, for some of them were my erstwhile colleagues. It wasn’t exactly news to those of us in the media it was an acknowledgement of an old problem. Nevertheless I was angry for being a part of this machinery, hurt and cheated as a reader.
There are two parts to the unfolding story. One is ethical. Yes, we blew it big time. Two is quality itself. Why isn’t anyone talking about it? Many developing countries have vibrant media where quality may not be top notch, but at least there is a pretense of ethics. Paid news is sacrilege. It remains to be seen what the Group of Ministers (GoM) on paid news will finally have to offer.
The quality issue will be addressed if and when the sector is opened up for foreign competition. But there are well-funded engines that power "the status quo" - powerful enough to block an increased FDI in the print media. Of course, they have only bought time for now.
Often top editors bemoan the quality of people entering the profession. Since journalism became glamorous a decade ago, youngsters came in droves into the profession. Rookie reporters are soon asked to wake up and smell "the paper trail" as it were. It is hardly the original paper trail that backs good, solid old fashioned journalism. Youngsters quickly learn that old fashioned journalism will not really take them where they want to be. Many young Turks in journalism behave more as fixers than as journalists.
The currency for "good" journalists as we know today, are the ones with access to the "papers" - the parallel information network laid out exquisitely by hardworking lobbyists. (Ms Radia is one of the smartest people in the tapes.) The leaks and the taps of this information pipe, plumb the depths of editorials in newsrooms. The "dossier-ed" journalists are also called papertigers, who obviously roar! They are seen on front pages, and are omnipresent on TV, and heard on tapes. So either one subscribes to this well-directed information flow to climb up the newsroom ladder, or one is left outside the coterie. Many of us routinely missed these "page-one" targets. We were clearly outside "the flow". These choices are made clear, made visible. Never mind motive, authenticity, sourcing and for that matter, accuracy, in the flood of information that cruises through news desks. Frenzied competition is hardly an excuse. Cynicism aside, we need a new metric to gauge good journalists. Visibility or access alone will not help.
To be sure, there are the conscience keepers in the system, but unfortunately they too are co-opted into the status-quoism. I think there is definitely, a leadership issue here. The stakes, we are told, are high. Everyone needs to be promoted to meet the rising aspirations of upper middle class India. (Note, I did not say middle class.). Anyone who drifts into the profession is well aware of the hard work and the fact that money and rewards are not always commensurate with the efforts. We often forget that we are delivering a public good (like collecting sewage ??" perfect analogy in this case, or issuing rail tickets ??" whoever said this was glamorous?) We are, but watchmen and watchwomen.
Yes, reporters are the foot soldiers in any newsroom. But pray, why can’t we have more editors who work harder than reporters, so that they can rip the story apart? Can we have more editors who are downright critical and skeptical about a story, and can smell a "plant" from a distance? Can we have more editors who are not pushing an agenda because of their "good" friends in the corporate world, or for that matter in the government?
Way too many people complain about governance and why "good" people don’t get into politics. Who wants to get their hands dirty? Media has almost become a place like that ??" for young conscientious adults who have better options than to work as a journalist.
There have been many bright minds driven away by the status-quoists. We need bright people, who should come and work hard in journalism ??" throw away super jobs in finance and everything else that an emerging economy like India offers, so that they can continue to languish under listless editors with agendas to push. It is not surprising, therefore, that there are journalists disgruntled or otherwise who leave reasonably well-paying media jobs just so that they can do some "real" work and bypass the hypocrisy and drama that this profession also offers.
But some of us in the media who care about the profession may want to initiate changes. Instead of just becoming the unoriginal angry young/old, man/woman, we could perhaps try to resist getting co-opted in the system to begin with. While we want to be a part of the change, we do not want to be the ones to usher it in, because we are scared of upsetting the applecart. I think there should be a campaign against loving bosses and sources too much. A ban against agreeing too much, too easily.
Unfortunately, at times as crucial as these, we become astute fence-sitters. As journalists, we never have to take a stance with the fear that we may be seen losing our objectivity. But we know that an objective journalist is sometimes a spineless one as well.
Contemporary Indian philosophy can be encapsulated in two words "Chalta hai". Eulogies have been written about our approach to fixing a problem by "Jugaad". It is a cultural issue, and the media is no exception. No sirs, it is not ok.
(The author is a business journalist who has worked with two financial dailies in New Delhi. She is currently a freelancer based in Switzerland.)
Subscribe To The Newsletter