Ranjona Banerji: Should journalists should be allowed to report live from courts?

By Ranjona Banerji

Journalist Rana Ayyub is no stranger to being attacked on social media – for being female, for being Muslim, for being a journalist and for all three. But what happened to her last month is the sick side of trolling gone too far. Fake profiles were created in her name and fake tweets were put out, suggesting that she was advocating human rights policies for child rapists especially if they were Muslim.

In many cases, trolling is par for the course on social media. But this is not trolling. This is a deliberate attempt to malign and damage a journalist for “speaking truth to power” as they say these days. To challenge the ruling ideology or the expose any wrongdoing by the government now leaves you open to vicious propaganda, both official and unofficial. That is, if the attack on Ayyub was “unofficial”.

Given the atmosphere in the country, when Nidhi Razdan of NDTV did a programme on this subject, she and her channel were also subjected to abuse on social media. There is no argument that can justify this sort of behaviour. Although “freedom of expression” is usually used as a defence by its proponents, who then pull out random statements by politicians to justify women being threatened with rape and worse. Unfortunately, we have a ruling dispensation which encourages hatred and the targeting of anyone who challenges it. Not to mention a Prime Minister whose Twitter account follows several people who are serial offenders when it comes to making threats of rape and violence.

The battle must continue but the costs are high.

https://www.dailyo.in/variety/rana-ayyub-trolling-fake-tweet-social-media-harassment-hindutva/story/1/23733.html

https://thewire.in/media/delhi-journalists-body-condemns-relentless-trolling-of-rana-ayyub

**

Several young lawyers have been doing India an invaluable service by live-tweeting from the Aadhaar proceedings at the Supreme Court. The case affects the very essence of individual liberty in our democracy. It is imperative that citizens who cannot be in court are informed about the arguments being made by the government and the petitioners as well as the remarks of the justices hearing the case.

Clearly, not everyone is happy. In a neat argument that pretends to be media-friendly, an argument is made in an opinion piece in Mint, that journalists should be allowed to report live from the courts because arguments are being improperly reported by lawyers. One would applaud if this was not so funny. Because once you read between the lines of the argument made by the writer, you realise that he is upset that the government’s line was challenged and that a government lie was exposed by the Supreme Court. The next column on this can presumably be that only pro-Aadhaar journalists be allowed to report from the courts?

Luckily, our intrepid lawyers on Twitter not only poked holes into the argument but also revealed that the writer had a clear vested interest in the case. Mint should have made that clear at the end of the article.

https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/1hG7NHlyRqRX3udMdSysoL/A-game-of-Chinese-whispers-in-the-Aadhaar-case.html

Incidentally, it was reported subsequently, by journalists, that the government had misled the people of India on the Supreme Court’s “ruling” on the Lokniti case. There was no directive from the SC making linking Aadhaar to your mobile phones a must.

Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are personal