I made my way through the ornate gates, my mind stunned by the majesty of the institution. In the center stood Lady Justice, in a blind fold, and I wondered how she could close her eyes to the beauty of the 4 pillars around her. The first pillar was called the legislature, the second was the executive, and the third was called the judiciary. The fourth pillar, glowed a silver in contrast to the golden light from the first three, and looked slightly different. It wore proudly the quotes of diversity, and whispered the different voices of the people. The pillar was called the “free press”.
Taking a step closer, I saw one of the many cracks in the pillar. These cracks travelled all across the floor, and up all the other beautiful pillars. It dawned upon me, that if even one of these pillars collapses, the entire institution, the majestic palace of democracy, will crumble to dust, sooner or later.
***
There are 4 pillars of democracy, namely- the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, and the free press. The role of the free press is often underestimated. It has a huge responsibility, for it enables the citizens of the country to exercise their rights. The press keeps the government in check, by reflecting the right and wrong in society and in turn making sure that the authorities take action where needed. A free press ensures that that the voice of every citizen in a country is echoed, and the people have a say in how the country functions.
In order to uphold these responsibilities, the media, is guaranteed the right to freely publish under Article 19(1)(a), which ensures:
(i) The right to lay what sentiments one pleases before the public, or the right to impart information and ideas.
(ii) The right to receive information and ideas from others through any lawful medium.
Till here, it sounds good. Then why is it that you are forced to switch between different news channels on TV, for the sake of your eardrums and sanity? You gain no new information, but now you know who to call if you want to win a screaming contest. Also, why is it that news channels are seen reporting similar kinds of news, or targeting one group and heaping praises on the other? The worst is when news channels resort to reporting fake news.
It cannot be denied that the fourth pillar itself is not very stable. One would think that, for the media to be a pillar of democracy, the democracy in the country itself would ensure media independence. But the media is also a business. It is owned by people with opinions of their own, and needs ample finances to operate. Media independence is guaranteed only when the media is financially sound, and the journalists are truly free and fair in their reporting.
We face 2 problems here.
The First--Indian news channels are owned by millionaires who stand behind political parties.
This is reflected in the way news is reported. For example, NDTV was forced to apologize when it displayed a graph showing the number of MPs (members of parliament) with criminal records in every party, where the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) stood with the highest bar. The graph was not correct according to the actual numbers. BJP, in fact, had the least number of MPs with criminal records. It is also interesting to note that the correction that the channel later shared on twitter was in the form of a table, and not a graph as they had previously showcased.
We can see this in the coverage of the farm bills as well. Some channels report in favour of the farmer, while the others are convinced that the farmers don’t know what’s right for them. But not once, did a channel simply explain the farm bills, line by line, without any bias, so that the viewer is able form an understanding of his own.
The average Indian is left to gather news in bits, collecting information from one news outlet to another. To make this worst, the government ends up confusing the Indian audience even more. If you have read about the farm laws, you’ll realise that the bill does not give any statutory backing to MSP or government procurement, but the Prime Minister's tweets have lent assurance to the farmers saying the MSP system will still remain.
So as a citizen of the Indian democracy, does one have to sit and sort their news, fake from real, left from right? Do we not have the right to pure, untainted information?
This brings us to the second problem-- News outlets are suppressed from reporting certain stories.
On 11 August 2020, three journalists working with The Caravan—Shahid Tantray, Prabhjit Singh and a woman journalist—were beaten, subjected to slurs, and threatened with murder by a mob while reporting in Subhash Mohalla, in northeast Delhi, during the 2020 Delhi riots. They were gathering information on the on the harassment of the neighborhood’s Muslim women by their Hindu neighbours after finalising the construction for Ram Mandir on August 5. The reporters were eventually forced to delete the pictures and information that they had gathered to escape the mob that had surrounded them.
Founding editor of The Wire, Siddharth Varadarajan wrote, “Stop vigilante attacks, false cases and police violence.” Subsequently, 2 FIRs were registered against The Wire and Varadarajan for publishing a report on the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister's plan to organise a religious event in Ayodhya during the COVID19 lockdown.
Not surprisingly, India has dropped two places on the World press freedom index 2020, to be ranked 142 out of 180, in the 'Reporters without Borders' analysis. It is preceded by countries like Thailand, UAE, and Philippines.
From these instances, it is clear that pressure is put from different quarters to facilitate presenting the news in such a way that the end result benefits someone, and hurts someone else. So, even if a news outlet intends on bringing out unadulterated information, it has to live in fear of being threatened physically, or as often seen these days, legally.
As for the dramatic debates, Dhanya Rajendran, co-founder of The News Minute, who formerly worked with Times Now as their South India Bureau Chief, said that in the editorial meetings, it was repeatedly reinforced that news is also entertainment, or “infotainment”. To some extent, this was okay. Channels came together to question political leaders who no one dared to question, albeit with some drama here and there.
The (then sane) amount of theatrics would bring channels their viewers, ensuring good TRP. Television Rating Point (TRP) is a tool provided to judge which programmes are viewed the most, with the help of ‘barometers’. This gives an idea of the choice of the people and also the popularity of a channel. When a channel or news outlet is popular, i.e. has a lot of viewers, companies like to invest in them in form of advertisements. This keeps the news outlet running.
But, if the investors don’t agree with the content of the news shown by the outlet/channel, or see that the TRP for that channel is dipping, they freeze their advertisements, or in simpler words, stop investing. So, news channels have to live in constant fear for their finances.
It is for all these reasons that the news is what it is today. When you switch to a channel, all you see are swiftly moving “headlines” flashing in different colours, not to mention the repeated lightning bolts that end up grabbing more attention than the news itself. And all you hear is… well you’re lucky if you can hear anything at that decibel. Half researched, if not completely fake news is circulated, thanks to the easy accessibility of social media. Doctored graphs are all too common, and only one side of a story is heard. Those who actually want to report news, have to live in fear of mobs, politicians and mercurial investors. In the end, the Indian citizen has to navigate through life in bits and pieces of information, fragmented in left or right, tainted in the shades of political agendas, or doctored to fit somebody else’s prescription.
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