By Ranjona Banerji
Something called National Press Day came and went.
Don’t be that cynical, you want to say to yourself.
Do not be sanctimonious either.
Journalism has never been perfect. There are any number of instances in the past where so much has gone wrong, so much has been manipulated and so many have fallen prey to the attractions of access and money.
Just think back on how press conferences became massive bribery events post-economic liberalisation in 1991. Journalists were so overjoyed with the white goods, money, share options they had been gifted that they ignored problems of fairness and distance. Business journalism collapsed then and has never really recovered.
There were a few bastions which tried to hold out. And the collapse of those is what hurts and irks.
I often blame television and you might wonder why. Those day and night time anchors have become your friends. You feel you know them because they enter your homes and talk to you. But by talking more than collecting information and then analysing it for the viewer, they decided instead to ask a million opinions without any clarity or sense. This format has debased the essence of the job and degraded the worth of anyone else who tries to do it the other way.
The result is that news has become elitist. The way Hindi cinema became at the height of the Bollywood blockbuster – nonsensical regressive punch-ups with rape and violence as entertainment for the general public and high art cinema for the few who could appreciate it.
That is not what journalism should be.
But it is what it has become.
However, what’s happening in this terrible murder case of Shraddha Walker and the accused Aftab Poonawalla is, I’m sorry to say, typical journalism. I know many will get upset with me and pretend there was some perfect time where journalists behaved ultra-responsibly and did not sensationalise a case like this, but I put it to you that you are dreaming and you have forgotten.
The danger appears to be that there is no one within newsrooms who’s stepping back and assessing the damage. It’s push push push for the next titbit. And the police are playing up, for their few minutes of fame. Look back to the Aarushi case. The police worked for the cameras more than the victims. Forensic investigation was a joke. The media acted out a million scenarios which only muddied a dirty situation. Justice eventually was not done.
And people, us, well we all had our theories, based on nothing. Our own personal prejudices and pet ideas emerged, as they have now. The police are no different. They float theories based on their personal mindsets. And the idea of serial killers, psychopaths, sociopaths are not part of our cultural myths about ourselves. For years we’ve behaved as if murder was some alien thing which goodie-goodie Indians never commit. This is despite all evidence to the contrary! The perfect Indian is a legend we love to propagate: non-violent, hard-working, studious, quiet, non-combative, family-oriented and whatever other nonsense.
The media and police come from this same social cauldron and react accordingly.
What am I saying? That we are like this only?
Not really.
Only that our idea of responsibility and analysis is even more flawed than normal in these times.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.