Good intentions, wrong focus

 Justice Katju says even a peon needs a qualification: at least he should be a high school pass. “Are you people (journalists) worse than chaprasis? Why are you so such touchy about qualification of journalists?” he said in a recent television debate on the issue. He even took on an anchor of the show and told him that government doesn’t make laws; Parliament makes them. Just to remind him that he is ignorant of the law, to put his point across that journalists need education.

Justice Katju uses very harsh language. All those sitting in Delhi might be aghast, but those away from Delhi know that he speaks sense at times. Not at all times, though!

There are problems in journalism and there is need to acknowledge the problems and to address them. You cannot be in denial mode always. Yes, Justice Katju seems to be on a mission to correct unprofessional journalists. He wants to set everything right, all that he perceives is wrong with journalism. It seems his perception about journalists is that they are the most ignorant tribe handling the most important profession.

He says like law and medicine, only those having degrees from universities should enter the profession and practice it. Yes, if Justice Katju continues at the present pace, he will one day ask the government to fix salary of journalists.

To counter his arguments, you can tell him that unlike lawyers, journalists are being watched and read by people and feedback is instant. You can tell him that journalists break stories and shake governments. And the day the contempt of court clauses are removed, they would tell the world which judgement was delivered by a judge keeping his post-retirement assignment in consideration.

You can tell him, what qualification you are talking about? And remind him how unintelligible court judgments spread over 400 pages and at times 1,000 pages are summarised by a reporter in 800 words and then a sub-editor reduces reporters’ copy to 350 words. And judges seldom complain that reporters wrongly report judgments. If a reporter is qualified enough to chisel a 100-page legal document into 100 words, does he need any further qualification?

You can argue: Don’t the lawyers and judges need lessons on brevity, simplicity and clarity from journalists? Hope it is not contempt of court or contempt of judges.

You can tell Justice Katju to have a look at the law colleges. If a person fails to get admission in any other course after graduation, then he takes recourse to law. And the Department of Law never fails him.

Justice Katju can be reminded of what former law minister Arun Jaitley says about judges. "There are two kinds of judges – those who know the law and those who know the law minister. We are the only country in the world where judges appoint judges. Even though there is a retirement age, judges are not willing to retire. Pre-retirement judgements are influenced by post-retirement jobs."

The point is if Justice Katju sees flaws in journalism as it is practised presently, there are flaws in other institutions. They also need course correction.

But it doesn’t mean flaws in journalism should be ignored only because Justice Katju says it. They should not.

Maybe it is not true in Delhi or in other metropolitan cities but in the states, the story is different. Owners of newspapers and news channels are such that if you set matric pass criteria for them to run a newspaper, 90 per cent of them will have to switch to another business.

Newspaper business is one of the profitable businesses; it gives you an influence in political circles for carrying out other businesses. Usually reporters and editors, who are educated, don’t have other business than the job of a reporter, sub-editor and editor. And they always want to stick to these jobs.

But the owners have other businesses. They don’t give a damn about reporters and editors at times. It is they, who decide what an editor should write in his editorial and what news editor should say in the story. It is the owners who run the show and they will never bother to even talk to Justice Katju. So he will never have an idea about their qualification, education and the ideas, if at all they have any, about journalism.

Then there are journalism schools. They teach you theories which are never ever practised in real journalism. That is where reforms are needed. Because journalists these days are coming from journalism schools and focus of Justice Katju and senior journalists should be: what should be taught in journalism schools? And whether journalism schools should include law, political science, economics as subjects. All these things need to be debated.

There is need to have debates on who should own a newspaper. Should it be free for all? Even contractors and mafia dons own newspapers in different states.

Irrespective of what Justice Katju says, these issues need a thorough debate within.