By Ananya S Guha
This piece is a plea to the ‘national media’ to exercise restraint while breaking news or writing reports. It is one of the most powerful tools that can either play a massively constructive or destructive part -depends on the way our able journalists prefer to tread. An ‘ETHICS’ controlled media is the need of the hour, especially in countries such as India, which is multi-racial, multi-religious, caste ridden hosting pluralistic societies and ‘cultures’. The word ‘culture’ defies singular explanation, but it is exactly this cultural melting pot, which makes India what it is – an indefinable culture and a glorious relic of the past. Temples, mosques and churches co-exist, so do hills, mountains, plains and valleys. Climates typify polarities and extremities; extreme heat and extreme cold or a salubrious climate in places by the sea.
Weather can be atrophied, rivers too but not the edifice of culture built upon history. Commingling of races and artefacts of the past such as varying architecture ranging from mausoleums and domes to enduring temples and quaint mosques and churches. How do we preserve such a history in the wake of ethnic riots or inter community (wrongly, referred to as ‘communal’) disturbances or for that matter terrorism? Here the media can calm the storm, play pacifist and interventionist roles. It can, without sensationalizing matters cement bonds, highlighting similarities rather than harping on differences. It can bring end to cleavages and wedges by not by playing point counterpoint but by participatory action, and mediation, bringing people and communities; both ethnic and religious together, seal bonds, rather than typify shortcomings and horrendous diatribes, one pitted against the other – the classic example of ‘us’ and ‘them’ syndrome. The media has all the resources, physical, intellectual and moral to do this; they can carry people with them to make positive voices heard and emerge.
No one can doubt the intrepidity of the Indian media, their gutsiness and ability to do stories in the midst of worst kind of challenges. But exercise caution, restraint and tact they must. It is not for nothing that the Supreme Court in a recent injunction prescribed media guidelines in the Falak episode, bizarre as it was.
The media can make or break. Let it make, build and re-build rather than remain automatons in the hands of a sleazy few.
I have cited some examples as to how media creates excitement and instead of choosing to follow the story on merits, it runs after sensationalism and in the process, it forgets whether the thing it is getting involved in so passionately is right or wrong. In continuation I would like to cite three case studies to support my argument. I would also like to point out that I am not making any diatribes against media or journalists. My only impassioned plea is to write reports in such a manner so as to prevent antagonising any section of our innumerable societies. This is a complex task, I agree but this has to be done with wisdom and dispassion.
The Aarushi Talwar murder case is something we can start our argument with. Immediately after this barbaric episode, the media reported, led by a leading newspaper of the country that she was murdered by her parents because she and her domestic man servant objected to the clandestine affairs of her parents, which of course included flagrant love affairs. The media then retracted. After that a series of murders took place and the media then said that domestic helps in their house and nearby were responsible for this grotesque act.
After a couple of years the main suspects were exonerated. We are told now that they are in hiding. After some more years the CBI closed the case yet again pointing accusing fingers at the parents. The case is now oscillating between various courts. In the meantime, the parents are pleading not guilty. It has been several years now but the justice hasn’t been done by our courts but some of our journalists drew the conclusions on the very first day.
The second case was that of the Anna Hazare anti-corruption campaign in which almost entire country participated, so much so that children proudly proclaimed that “I am Anna”. We don’t know what is happening now. For months, there was only Anna on our TV sets, every station we surfed, Anna, his followers and TV debates were omnipresent. Now he has stopped featuring in our newspapers and electronic media.
These are only examples that I have given to show how the media creates excitement and loses all interest after creating excitement and tension. Who gains and who loses? It is the sensitive Indian.
The Iran-Israel ‘conflict’ and its relation to India is another case of media hype. Again in this case, we witnessed how Indian media, electronic media in particular drew conclusions on the bombing of the Israeli diplomat’s car in Delhi.
Last year news reports of Iran’s nuclear strategy and its connection with the attack on an Israeli diplomat in India was uncalled for, not based on facts and, tenuous; to say the least. This is another flagrant example of how the media, especially the electronic media, simply jumps to conclusions not based on evidence; and creates excitement and hysteria in the minds of the public through its “Breaking News” tickers.
What relation does Iran’s nuclear mission have with this episode? Does it mean that Iran is flexing its muscles as a show of strength and that too on Indian soil? Is it because Iran is trying to polarize Indo-Israel ties? The last question has been insinuated by a conniving media which is trying to propagate the story of Iran’s hostility towards Israel, on Indian soil, thus raising eyebrows in the Israeli polity. Then again is the nuke ‘threat’ which the US is viewing with disfavour, so are the other European countries. It is astonishing how the US is always threatened by countries other than its allies and how its foreign relations are guided by interventionist actions.
India wisely has kept silent till now, but no not the media, which has directly impugned and castigated Iran for the car blast in New Delhi. Seema Mustafa’s analysis of this contentious issue and erroneous advocacies of the media in “Free Press Journal” (online edition dated: 20.02.2012) is an eye opener and excellent exposition of this false thesis propagated by the media. India of course will have to kowtow to the US to maintain its dithering and contradictory foreign policy dictated by US ‘goodwill’ and hidden diktats.
How long will this impasse last with India not coming out in the open regarding Iran, Israeli ‘hostility’ on Indian soil? As always India remains the mute scapegoat, its voices stifled by an aggrandising Israel backed by the US. India has always allowed the US to play a cat and mouse game regarding Pakistan. Only the media is relentlessly vociferous . . . about unsubstantiated facts!