A REPORTERS DILEMMA
If
morality becomes a casualty in pursuing one`s work, it is a big price to pay.
Perhaps morality is too strong a word. Yet, most of us now feel, there is an
increasing gap between what the media is expected to do and what it is doing.
After the Gujarat riots accusations against the media`s lack of ethics in
reporting were hurled like the many hued arrows on the battleground in B.R.
Chopra`s Mahabharat. The angry arrows of blame crossed each other out, but the
sparks remained.
Then came the Natasha Singh death case. Even as the electronic and print media,
went berserk between the murder and suicide theories, we knew everything that
we never wanted to know about a prominent politician`s anguished
daughter-in-law. Yet again, it was the media`s "handling" that was
subjected to a post-mortem. And rightly so.
While
it unleashes multi-dimensional debates on the responsibility of the Fourth
Estate, there is a strange sense of loss some journalists are feeling.
Ruminating over Aaj Tak`s much criticized clipping from the film Baazigar,
telecast during the reporting of Natasha Singh`s death, a senior journalist
remarked that he was ashamed to be known as a part of the media. And it isn`t
only about Aaj Tak, or any print or electronic section of the media in
particular. The sense of doubt about how well we are doing what we are doing is
scary.
We
all know that we have to report some horrendous stuff off and on. While we may
like to tell ourselves that it is to shake people out of their complacency, we
also know that bland reporting with just the facts has no buyers any more. And
why just buyers? Even our editors don`t give us any extra marks sticking only
to the story. Just truth is bland. Just facts are boring. There have to be spins,
related juicy angles, an intelligent raking up of long-buried things and
sensational hypothesis.
Ironically,
just at a time when Indian journalism might be actually coming of age with the
impact news now has on people, we journalists are becoming suspect. Few readers
trust us. While opinion pieces and columns are still read, the reportage is
skimmed through with scepticism. People have also learnt to take the facts we
report with a pinch of salt.
As
a result, the viewer or the reader now chooses makes his own salad of news. He
picks out bits from here and there which he finds convincing and links it to
remain "informed". Nobody just goes by the version of one newspaper
or one channel anymore. Think about this--in this whole mad scramble to
compete, who is the winner when it comes to dependability? No one. The number
of advertisements, unfortunately, does not increase the trustworthiness of any
channel.
As
the case against the media gets stronger, what is the grey area that we can
occupy? Is there a way that we can report the brutality of communal riots and
yet exercise ethical "restraint" which our unrestrained (and
sometimes unethical) politicians often remind us of?
For journalists who are in the profession for the sheer thrill of the game, the times have never been better. But journalists who are in the profession because this is the only thing they would rather do and do it ethically, perhaps need an urgent crash course in the art of balance. That includes news editors and bulletin producers. How many times should scenes of carnage be repeated in a 24 hour news cycle? In what manner?