Open Forum
New Delhi, 10 December 2015
Media’s New
Paradigm
IS TRUTH A
CASUALTY?
By Moin Qazi
The media
has traditionally been seen as the most significant of external influencers.
However, in a toady’s globally connected age, defining “media” has become a
daunting proposition. While editors remain powerful, you can no longer discount
the potential impact of a solitary blogger or a research house that is
operating on the other side of the world.
For
example, when an unfounded rumour seeps onto the Internet, it is often
impossible to prevent it from diffusing unless large numbers of online supporters
spontaneously mobilise to counter it on your behalf. Such public support can’t
be turned on like a tap—it can only be earned through a gradual process of
stakeholder engagement. It is only by building a workable rapport with each of
your corporate or brand audiences that you can call upon their support or
understanding when needed.
But
as media becomes more pervasive, it also opens eyes to what is happening in the
rest of the world. What is ironic is that although media causes a lot of angst
by revealing what is on the other side of the curtain, or creating desires that
seem frivolous, it could also be the tool that empowers the poor the most, and
ultimately inverts the pyramid! Newspapers can manipulate news by trying to put up a
positive or negative spin.
On the
electronic side, the vocal pitch and tonal language of the newsreader also
impart meanings and nuances to the content. What is ironic is that although
media causes a lot of angst by revealing what is on the other side of the
curtain, or creating desires that seem frivolous, it is rarely a tool
that empowers the poor and ultimately helps them in inverting the pyramid!
Media
owners have always been interested in following the audience to make journalism
a viable business, for which they want news, political, economic or business
that would bring in advertisement. The crux of the problem is that there is a clear
conflict between those who run media and those who run journalism.
There are a
number of ways that a journalist can hold people and organizations accountable
for their actions without taking a position. To start with, journalists working
on a story must be determined to stay objective, throughout the period of
research and investigation. To avoid taking a position, both or multiple sides of
the story must be presented. If people or organizations are involved in
wrongdoings, then their view as well as the views of those facing the
repercussions of their actions must be made clear.
It is not
up to the journalist to help shape the reader’s perspective, especially, while
reporting a story or doing a feature, therefore, one should avoid taking a
stand. In cases, where transgressions have been obviously committed, reliable
sources could help make those clear and garner readers support for those
suffering from them. Even then, the alleged perpetrator must be allowed to
present their points of view. Sometimes, simply pursuing a story, because
personal interests could be at stake, amounts to taking a position.
In
journalism, like in law, facts can be presented to support or disprove an
incident, an action or a decision. Being aware of this, can help journalists
understand that facts have to be presented not as one would like them to be
read to fit a notion or a brief, but as they have occurred.
As a
journalist one must always tread the path of breaking news carefully. In an
attempt to break news or create exclusive stories, many journalists leave
objectivity, professional ethics and personal integrity behind. Exaggerating
facts, presenting just one side of the argument or sensationalizing stories is
bad journalism and one must steer clear of the factors that lead to confusion
and misrepresentation.
Readers and
viewers are now immediately taking comments from their peers, seeing additional
points of view on the blogosphere, and even hearing directly from companies and
sources that may be the subject of a story. No longer do readers’ letters take
days or weeks to publish--and that was only after they had been edited down to
bite-sized, consumable blip--after a story’s news cycle has already passed.
Courage, in
those innocent days, had a simpler definition. Usually, it meant making sure
you got the story others wouldn’t bother to reach and telexing it back somehow
in the days of poor communication. At the same time, it was exposing a wrong
and moving on to the next story, a heady hit-and-run that required courage,
intellect, but did not demand that the story be taken to its logical
conclusion, with redress for the victims, punishment to the guilty.
From merely
fighting an authoritarian State, the journalism of courage was now exposing and
taking on its many limbs and instruments that were autocratic and unaccountable
anyway. It was with this journalism that combined with the higher judiciary to
empower some of the poorest and weakest sections of our society to seek
justice.
Journalism
of courage is no longer hit-and-run guerrilla warfare. It’s a medium of
empowerment by bringing to light information that either somebody in the
establishment is trying to hide or something that others may not have had the
integrity, intellect or courage to discover, print and then follow up until
other institutions, from the media to the judiciary, join in and take the idea
to its logical conclusion.
You’ve got
to be a bulldog in the journalism business; you mustn’t let go of a story once
you have sunk your teeth into it. You shouldn’t allow yourself to be bullied.
And don’t allow yourself to be bought. In the pursuit of truth and fairness, no
price is too high to pay. One should make that extra call, take that extra trip,
visit that additional source -- and then do it all over again until one is
truly convinced that the story is as accurate, as fair and as thorough as
humanly possible. Recall, CP Scott the founder editor of The Guardian, one of the world’s oldest and most respected
newspapers laid down a cardinal rule of journalists the world over: “Comment is
free but facts are sacred.” ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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