Justice Katju's idea - a much needed immunisation for the media

A few days ago I watched the movie Fair Game. Its based on real life incidents leading to the 2^nd Iraq war and its fall out on an American family. Everyone knows the story – the Bush junior government leaked the name of a CIA operative to newspapers, endangering her life and those of her children and husband. This was because her husband – Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat and Ambassador to Niger, stated that American claims of yellow cake being exported to Iraq for their nuclear programme was completely false. He made that statement because the American government had sent him to determine whether these claims, initially made by the British, were actually true. Ambassador Wilson went to Niger and found that these claims were baseless.

While working in the CIA Valerie Plame, the Ambassador's wife, had successfully argued that a waylaid shipment of Aluminium Tubes enroute to Iraq were not meant for the Iraqi nuclear weapon programme. This punctured the claims of Dick Cheney and Condellizza Rice who were hell bent on believing that these tubes were heading for centrifuges in Iraq's non existent nuclear facility. Valerie's report gave these war hungry officials less fodder to feed their cannon, aimed at Iraq, with. However, that did not stop Bush and his cohorts, including those from across the pond in the UK, from publicly using these false arguments to attack Iraq eventually.

Bush and Blair never found any weapons of mass destruction – but they did destroy a country and a people.

This would not have been possible if the media had not been cheer-leading the warmongers, lead by Bush and his merry men including Blair, into war.

The media whose role was to be unbiased and extract the truth failed miserably in their duty to report the truth and question their government in the lead up to the 2^nd Iraq war. This was a result of human frailty, US was coming out of the 9/11 attacks for which the Bush government had also blamed Saddam, without proof. So everyone wanted to ride the 'wave' in every possible way.

Thus, for the media to go against the prevailing hysteria in the country would have been nigh impossible because many in the media too were affected by the 9/11 events. More importantly if that was the mood that was selling at that time it would have been suicidal to have gone against the tide.

So, the the media toed the official line and then went to battle with the troops in an arrangement termed as 'embedding' where reporters would tag along with troops to the frontline on the condition that their reports would be vetted by the military. Thus to sell their newspaper and news channels, media outlets sold the war to readers back home.

Would it be wrong to say that in its desire for breaking news and exclusivity, the media sold itself down the river? Did it lead to the current situation we have in Iraq and even Afghanistan?

It is not that this has happened only in the West, we have had our Iraqi moments too. Who can forget the 'live reporting' during the 26/11 which though farcical at times was enough to update Pakistani handlers who could then help their terrorists thereby endangering the lives of Mumbaikars and soldiers. Who can forget the Nira Radia tapes and kingmaking role that certain media personnel were playing a few years back. An immediate fall out of that was Vinod Mehta was no longer seen on NDTV as a commentator.

So its a bit unfortunate when people of the media say that for journalists “The best training is on the field.” The only response to that is - our society, readers and news viewers cannot be used as guinea pigs or held hostage as journalists gain experience and hone their skills in the field.

Which therefore brings us to Justice Katju's suggestion about minimum qualifications required to be a journalist.

That meetings in the news room go just beyond news to TRP, marketing and revenues is no longer fiction – the case going on between Zee News and JSPL and the Caravan article about TimesNow point to it. Advertorials are now passé, news reports in papers are regurgitated directly from corporate newsletters. So the need for a little more professionalism in the media is not something that is coming out as a bolt-from-the-blue.

The argument about such a move curtailing freedom of press, decreasing opportunities for potential journalists and ignoring the special role that journalism plays in society is fallacious. It would seem that those arguing against the Katju idea of minimum qualification think of it as a 'pedigree'. This is unfortunate, a minimum eligibility has to be seen as a 'immunisation' against the potential hazards a journalist will face which could either make him an inadvertent transmitter of news, or lead him to act or commit acts, that goes against journalistic ethics, at the very least.

The point that can be argued is what kind of minimum qualification would be required? Would that qualification be an outcome of an educational course? Or could that qualification be tested and be reflected in a potential journalist's communication skills, knowledge of a variety of topics, understanding of the ethics and responsibilities of this profession?

The fact that there are no qualifications for entry into journalism puts the responsibility on the line managers to mentor these young reporters. Besides mentoring, the question of taking onus for the errors made by novice journalists also raises its awkward head. More importantly these trainee journalists may not have a benchmark, especially of the do's and dont's, that they can compare with and thus can easily be swept into the flood of unacknowledged perks that come along with this profession that also wields a lot of power. Basic qualifications can provide future journalists with certain markers that can guide them in their profession. That is not to say that those with such qualifications wont be fallible, pedigreed hacks with higher qualifications have been found wanting in more than one occasion.

If highly qualified and experienced media professionals can falter leading to grave repercussions for society, one can only imagine the threats from those learning on the job and the consequences it has on our society. The need is to create and foster inbuilt mechanisms that allow journalists to gauge professional and moral grey areas so that their choices reflect the needs of society – which is what journalism is about. I am not a mind reader but it would seem that this is what Justice Katju is aiming for and this can't be a bad idea.

The strange case of the cold, demand for justice and cricket

 

My train to Delhi was delayed by eleven hours. I had checked the status of the train on the web where it did say that the train had been delayed, but for some reason the tele-service mechanically proclaimed that the train was on time. This was a very real dilemma of who to believe and the kind of loss that would result from choosing one from the other. Finally I did go to the station with my luggage and lunch, and came back to have that lunch at the dining table. This gave me an opportunity to watch,later that evening, Sunil Gavaskar and Imran Khan - former captains of their national cricket teams - discuss that day's one-day-cricket match in Eden Gardens which India lost.

Sunil Gavaskar made some pertinent observations about the Indian cricket team. He said that the IPL is destroying cricket in general, which Imran Khan agreed to. Indian cricketers are choosing self before the nation in opting to play for the IPL. He explained that test cricket was the foundation for all forms of cricket and a cricketer who did well in test cricket would do well in the shorter forms of the game but this was not true in the reverse case.

Test cricket is a long dawn out affair; some of the qualities that a test cricketer builds from this game and needs to excel in this game are temperament, skill, perseverance, patience. I am sure he would agree that the game also needs the players to build and have stamina, concentration, unflagging team spirit and self motivation besides other things which a non-sportsman like me may not be aware of. What Sunil Gavaskar was indicating is that test cricket is the foundry which toughens the cricketers, enabling them to deal with other forms of the game. By cricketers and cricket management choosing to opt for the shorter and more lucrative forms of the game these sportsmen and administrators are building a team which is hollow in every aspect of the game as they havent gone through the winepress that builds and hones the skills and qualities of a good cricketer.

This philosophy as explained by Sunil Gavaskar can also be used in dealing with the current social problems facing our country. Take for example the case of the outcry for justice for rape victims post the brutal gangrape of a young women in a moving bus on the 16^th of December and her subsequent death. After the youth took to the streets with their demands for justice, stricter punishment which ranged from chemical castration to hanging others – from politicians to film stars followed suit. Jaya Bachan shed tears and the lawyers of Delhi declared that they would not represent the accused.

These demands and gestures are all forms of the IPL mindset that beset Indian cricket which have now come to roost within our society. Why do you think rape cases take so long in court? One reason is that lawyers themselves ask the court for adjournments. Lawyers in our country think of the legal process not as a way to get justice but as a method to ensure that the case does not come to trial and thereby allowing the accused to continue living within society.

What exactly was Jaya Bachan shedding tears about? The way women are treated in tinsel town – ala casting couch or the manner of their depiction in movies through vulgar item songs, lurid lyrics and scripts and the clothes worn?

Why is there a hue and cry by society and youth about police and government insensitivity? Dont these very people complain when they are stopped for minor misdemeanour’s? Dont they jump the line on occasion by asking for favours from powerful contacts? Why do they try to bribe their way through police sanction when they are caught transgressing – traffic rules for example? How do they tolerate young children working in homes of their own families or in families of their peers?

It is easy to paint ourselves out of a picture and put the blame on others. What is happening today to women is not something new. We need to ask some basic questions - why do mothers, and inlaws try to kill her as a foetus, why is she not allowed into religious places? And where are we in this picture? Rape is another form of brutality that the female sex has to endure in Indian society.

The point is that this is another instance of missing the forest for the trees. These demands are for quick solutions that do not question the systemic problems faced by women and our role in perpetuating them and our responsibility of preventing them.

This is much like another debate that is doing the rounds of some news channels – that of the cold and homeless. TV channels display shock and anger as poor outstation patients live on the streets of Delhi in the biting cold as they wait for appointments at India's best and largest hospital. The basic question that they repeatedly ask is why isnt the government and the hospital constructing more shelters? Another pointless question which is trumpeted is 'isnt the government shocked'? These half-baked questions do not resolve the problem and only depict the channel as being concerned.

The point is why do patients have to come to Delhi to be treated? Why are private hospitals not following the court's orders to provide beds and treat the poor? It is not enough to ask the government what they are doing, one should also question why government plans and schemes and court orders are not followed.

It is not enough to demand stronger laws and harsher punishments to stop rapes, nor will problems of the sick coming for treatment be solved by building shelters. What Sunil Gavaskar said about cricket has a lot of substance in the current issues faced by our society. We need to build a temperament that respects laws and each other. We as individuals and society need the skill and patience to prevent crimes from occurring and we need the perseverance to use our institutions in a manner that makes them work and deliver.

Seeking quick fix solutions will not solve the problem as they do not question our role in perpetuating a problem and our responsibility in fixing it. It is not without reason that 'be the change you want to see' and 'Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country' were words spoken by two people who are beacons for freedom and democracy.