“The Hindu”, the 3rd largest
English daily in India describes the “old school of journalism” as a profession
that meant hardworking, courteous, thoroughly professional, ignorant of PR
strategy and incapable of chicanery. Ironically today, the quest of journalism borders
on extreme grey matter. The clash between ethical reporting and shareholder
agenda constantly are at loggerheads that renders the nobility of the
profession paralyzed.
Every journalist would have
aspired to pursue a story like the Woodward-Bernstein duo and would have died
for a Benjamin Bradlee type editor. But alas, news today is driven by hidden
agenda championing the cause of shareholders intent. Today the media has grown
to be the most powerful industry in a globalized world. CNN perhaps became one
of the first news groups that gave instant newsflash “real time” covering the
entire globe.
It is a multibillion dollar
business that hinges on sensationalism as its primary driver to keep the
audience glued. Over and above this, the news media has a psychological hold on
its audience. This in turn is the trump card used as a vessel to propagate any
engineered weltanschauung.
For the last 40 years I have been
a reader of a local newspaper. So much so the day would not begin without at
least a glance at the newspaper in the
morning. It has been my constant companion. It saw me through The Khmer Rouge
insurgency, the Iranian Revolution, the Lewinsky Scandal, the Macintosh, Alien,
the Unification of Germany, the Collapse of the
Soviet Union, Y2K, the China/India Economic rise and the list goes on.
But it all ended on the 10th of May 2013, when I stopped purchasing my morning
daily. I lost trust and confidence in their journalism. Biased journalism
promoting owners’ interest may be fine but not to the extent of compromising
journalistic integrity.
Plato in his “Republic”
identified 5 virtues of journalism ie. wisdom, courage, temperance, justice and
truth, but the question is can journalists exercise these virtues without being
inhibited by higher orders. To that effect is there any entity that can operate
independently without being influenced by the forces that establish the artificial
equilibrium.
According to Kirkhorn M.J., virtue
in journalism implies a clear sighted expansion of outlook and requires
determined attempts to cross boundaries separating the journalist from society,
journalist from subject, journalist from journalist, journalist from ideas,
journalist from sentiments and feelings, and journalist from "inner
abundance." Unfortunately journalists like the rest of us are mortals too and
as such they are also bound by all rudimentary of life. Therefore having expectations
beyond that may border on asking the journalists to be self-sacrificing merely
to serve bystanders who would read the news and momentarily have coffee discussion
and absolutely forget about the journalist who may have gone through hell
writing the piece.
Luis Emanuel Ruiz Carrillo (Mexico), M.L.
Machanda (India), Anas al-Tarsha aka Anas al-Homsi (Syria), Jaime Garzón
(Columbia), Hayatullah Khan (Pakistan), Liban Ali Nur (Somalia), Anastasiya
Baburova (Russia), Allaoua M’barak (Algeria), Romeo Olea (Philippines), Adnan
Al Safi (Iran) and the list goes on, but does anyone know who they are? These
are actually journalists who have sacrificed their lives in the name of
journalism to highlight the atrocities committed to mankind in their respective
countries. Whilst on one hand there are these unsung heroes bringing glory to
the profession, there is also the clutches of higher order that suppresses altruistic
journalism.
In fact it was Kierkegaard via
the Corsair Affair who became one of the earliest self-conscious users and
critic of the mass media. Being an existentialist he believed that
philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking
subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. But the mass media
we have today has drifted very far from this perspective. Instead media moguls
decide what should be pursued and eventually front paged.
So where does this leave us as
the audience in the media theatre. The burden of responsibility now falls on
the hands of the audience to do their own editing before acceptance. The
confusion arising from the tug-of-war between media owners and journalism
creates doubt on credence of reporting. None is so relevant to the word “informed
judgment” than today. This reminds me of an old Indian saying “What you see
maybe a lie, what you hear maybe a lie, only extensive investigation would
prove right.” It looks like we can no longer accept news on face value but have
to compare and contrast with the barrage of information available, leading to a
deduced conclusion, hoping that it is closer to the truth.
But I still believe in what
Sartre famously said, “Better a good journalist than a poor assassin.”
