Is privacy becoming a dirty word in India?
When Greta Garbo asked the world to ?leave me alone?, the international media hesitated, but by and large did so. This was possible primarily because she was able to effectively keep them at bay, and, more importantly, because most media houses followed some semblance of a moral code they operated well within. The world and its media were then in perhaps a much less commercial and a touch more kindly place.
Today, unfortunately for the ?celebrity? or even the ?ordinary law-abiding citizen?, the obsession for scoops and snoops is at an all-time high. It appears almost vital for the media?s very existence. Defying all self-governing guidelines and principles that used to and should define good journalism, the media now hounds to death the very target that feeds them. Even in
Take any of our leading newspapers. From the old lady of Boribundar to the venerable Hindu, last month only one story was repeatedly played up: Tiger Woods?. In font sizes large and enormous we have been fed every little unnecessary detail of a brilliant sportsman?s private life. These icons of the Indian newspaper industry joined hands with the international media to systematically set about destroying a young man?s professional life.
Sleeping with a celebrity? was headlined in HT City of the 14th of December and the HT correspondent asks ?Do women get special kicks getting involved with ?high risk? men? as did many others in even more salacious words.
Does it honestly matter to anyone in India if Tiger Woods did or did not sleep with anyone? Other than out of passing interest it is doubtful whether anybody other than the reporters themselves gave it more than a perfunctory read.
Here was a man who had gone to immense lengths to keep his private life private. And had succeeded to a large extent but for that unfortunate accident. It is neither the media- whatever it might say- nor his extraneous affairs that built him up. He achieved iconic status because of his professional expertise in golf. He was put on a pedestal due to his brilliance in that game. His sponsorships followed because of that. What he does or does not do in his private life is of no consequence to anyone including the media if it does not impinge on anyone else?s life other than the ones concerned or involved. Now thanks to the media?s gleeful witch-hunt sponsors are pulling out and his personal life has been bared to the public eye. Media hype has all but destroyed a brilliant professional and all for entirely the wrong reasons.
This must not be acceptable.
Privacy is defined by Wikipedia as ?the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view or to control the flow of information about themselves?. Not only is the media hell-bent on ignoring that underlying principle, it actually sees it as something that it needs to overcome at all costs with nary a thought to the havoc they wreak on their mostly innocent targets. The contemptible ease with which they circumvent all known norms and ethics in their quest for a ?celebrity? scoop over-rides the very definition of the word ?privacy?
The right to personal privacy is also contained in our laws. But it evidently needs to have more teeth. Our lawmakers had probably not foreseen the kind of unpalatable onslaught on privacy that we see today. Yet the Supreme Court did rule in 1994 (Auto Sankaran case) that every citizen had the right to safeguard his or her privacy and nothing should be published on family, marriage and education without the citizen?s consent ?whether truthful or otherwise.?
In June last year every single newspaper and TV channel in the country went to town with every little detail they could find on a young airline stewardess who had sadly decided to take her life. It made life unbearable for her friends and their families alike. Media pressure even sent her young innocent colleague to jail for no real reason and his life held up for public scrutiny. His family was hounded by the press day and night. The enormous psychological and monetary havoc it wreaked cannot be measured. The trauma caused by sensation-seeking reporters on the lives of those totally unconnected cannot be emphasized enough.
The Arushi murder case is yet another example of the intrusive role played by the media. Can it resurrect those lives it managed to destroy?
Every ?hit and run? case, every single misdemeanor -advertant or inadvertant- becomes almost a cause c?l?bre for an unacceptable intrusion into the lives of not only those involved, but also everybody else around them.
This irresponsible tendency to over-hype a story with little thought to the consequences or its fallout makes the western-media aping Indian media an unpalatable behemoth that needs to be restrained. Ruthlessly.
Elsewhere in the world and in the UK/United Kingdom in particular, the monarchy and incumbent government, tired of what is happening to their lives, have begun to attempt some degree of damage control. They are seeking some serious re-engaging of the rules and renegotiating the terms of privacy and libel.
We too need to do something on similar lines before it truly gets out of hand.
It appears that editors no longer control what should make the front pages, and are quite unable to abstain from flooding us with irrelevant and salacious issues in their bosses? endeavor to perhaps increase sales. Mr.B. G. Verghese, one of India?s most reputed journalists, agrees. In a ?lament for the media? (Deccan Herald 29/12/09) he says that the Editor?s Guild had prescribed a code to curb business sops but then management managed to blur the line between news and ads. They succeeded in commodifying and dumbing down ?news? to make way for ?titillation, sensation, hype and sound bytes rather than substance to catch eyeballs, enhance sales?. Therefore intrusion into personal lives is alright so long as it sells.
The young hostess?s suicide or the Tiger Woods saga (unlike the most recent ND Tiwari sting operation) do not in any way fall within the purview of ?public interest? or the ?freedom of speech? angle that most editors swear by. Going global does not necessarily mean constantly feeding us with non-consequential details of non-issues. The fact that Tiger Woods? private life is of minor interest to most Indian readers appears also to have escaped them.
What our media needs to be reminded of is that ?The Right to Privacy? is an important part of the key provisions of the International Bill of Human Rights. There is also the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which upholds the same ?Right? in unambiguous terms.
So it is in the interest of the Indian media (including its electronic wing) to redefine the parameters of what constitutes being ?newsworthy? here , delineate once again the dividing line between intrusion of privacy and public interest and decide what is palatable and unpalatable to its reading public before the courts decide to do it for them. The Press Council needs to take the initiative in this and enforce a code that is binding amongst its members. It could help journalists withstand pressure and help them desist from ruining lives in the pursuit of scoops. The Press Registration Act also perhaps needs a review.
The Right to Privacy needs to be nurtured and upheld- indubitably. It is fundamental to our very existence as human beings. Privacy should not be allowed to become a dirty word in
Sreelata Menon
Links to article referenced:
? Sleeping with a celebrity, Hindustan Times 13.12.2009: http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/relationships/Sleeping-with-a-celebrity/Article1-486095.aspx
? Right to Privacy is under Article 21 - Protection of Life and Personal Linberty? of the Indian Constitution
? Auto Sankaran case reference. http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-83769
Lament for the media, B.G. Verghese: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/43729/lament-media.htm