By Ranjona Banerji
Much as the nation has been rocked by the events of the past two weeks, so has the media. We have seen a breakdown of law and order in the national capital, a student arrested for sedition, a university under siege for expressing itself, a terrorist attack in Kashmir, a state held to ransom by rampaging citizens, journalists attacked, fake tweets being upheld by the government and videos allegedly being doctored and shown without any attempt at verification by a hysterical media.
Phew. Too much to take? It is not going to get any easier, judging by the way we are going.
Journalists in India took out marches at various cities to protest against the way their colleagues were abused and beaten up by lawyers at Patiala House Court even as the police watched. For this, they were mocked by very senior columnists like Tavleen Singh who said she had not seen journalists marching for some 30 years. In fact, that is untrue. In Mumbai at least, journalists have protested in many forms, including marches, when their colleagues have been attacked by political parties.
I was at the march in Mumbai, as I pointed out in my last column, and every senior journalist there was aghast at the way that some news channels were covering the “crisis†at Jawaharlal Nehru University. I would wager that most of them know more about journalism and the way it should be practised than all our TV anchors put together.
Times Now and Zee News were seen as the main culprits in this game of “my nationalism is better than yours†because both had shown videos of JNU student Kanhaiya Kumar shouting anti-national slogans without authenticating them. The videos have turned out to be doctored. Times Now’s editor in chief Arnab Goswami denied that he had shown the videos when called on it by Sidharth Varadarajan, one of the editors of thewire.in, and ran demands onscreen for an apology. However when confronted with evidence that he had shown the videos on air, Goswami capitulated. So much for him “saving the nation†every night. You might argue that journalism needs to be saved from him.
A journalist with Zee News, Vishwa Deepak, quit the channel because he claimed he could not live with the fact that his channel had shown the doctored video knowing it was fake and that he and the staff had been forced into further falsification. Zee Media has contested this.
But for calling Times Now and Zee News on this reprehensible form of journalism, many of my former colleagues have called me a hypocrite. So be it. I would rather be called that than applaud such practices.
But the biggest surprise of the week came from Ravish Kumar of NDTV India. In what seemed like a Howard Beale “Mad as hell†moment (from the 1976 film Network which should be mandatory viewing for every journalist), Kumar spoke to his viewers about the sickness that has infected television journalism today. For 41 minutes, he kept you riveted as he talked about how the practise of journalism has been pummelled by its own people. The screen blackened as he spoke and he played out just the sound of screaming news anchors and enraged politicians and students.
Yes, it was gimmicky in parts and yes it was over-emotional and dramatic at times but it was no less true for all that. Kumar exposed much of what is wrong with journalism today and did it without putting himself above it. I salute Ravish Kumar for having the courage to change the pattern, if only for one night. He has held up a horrible mirror for us to look into. You as a journalist may dismiss him but you would do so at your own peril.
Perhaps journalism in India has now reached one more crossroads. There are some of us who agree with Ravish Kumar but we have reached a terrible depth. We have to reclaim the higher space. There are others undoubtedly, who will always kowtow to those who hold the purse-strings and who will bend towards whichever political party is in power. These have always existed but they were once the minority. Now one fears, they are the rulers.
I feel the worst for the young journalist who comes into the profession full of hope. Speak to a few of them and their disillusionment is evident. But if they have to make a living, what are they to do? Those who should be their mentors are now the perpetrators of fraud.
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I come back once again to journalists who do not stand up for other journalists when they are under siege. What is one to make of them? If however there is any fellow feeling left in us, which can manage to overcome political differences, then I feel we should be brave when we are threatened, not capitulate. And if you do not think that journalists are under threat, do read this:
http://scroll.in/article/803975/insidious-intimidation-delhi-police-visit-homes-of-journalists-covering-the-jnu-row
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My friend and former colleague Neeta Kolhatkar put out a tweet last week about a protest march being held by the Mumbai Press Club. Just for this, she was threatened on Twitter with gangrape. She immediately complained to the police and to Twitter India. I can only hope that she gets the full support of all journalists to make sure that the obnoxious Twitter account is identified and caught. In this, at least, I hope our partisan differences can be put aside?