Even an unlettered person in a remote hamlet would first attempt to cool down tension when he witnesses an agitated crowd take on somebody and counsel patience to sort out their grievance. But there are certain mischievous or perverted persons who incite both sides and relish the resultant clash. The difference between the two is akin to pouring water or oil over fire.
But unfortunately the tendency of our media in the country, the self-professed ‘opinion-makers’ and ‘social arbiters’, is like that of the second type of people.
For instance, although the conscience of the whole nation shook over the ghastly incident of gang rape of a 23-year old medical student in a bus in Delhi on December 18 and the justifiable anger vent out by the students in the capital through their agitation was understandable, the continuing unruly and violent stir for five or six days, resulting in the death of one policeman so far, even after the Central and State governments conceded all their demands and the higher courts also took suo motu steps caused concern in the minds of right thinking people. Their illogical insistence on a time frame for punishment of the culprits for continuing the violent stir has acquired political overtones, what with the ‘professional anti-UPA government’ elements like Arvind Kejriwal, Baba Ramdev, former army chief V.K.Singh et al joining the agitators and instigating them round the clock and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj telling a TV channel that the culprits should be awarded instant death sentence.
Right from the moment when the Delhi incident came to light, the 24x7 news channels became hyperactive telecasting reports of the gory incident and the agitation round the clock, driving their camera crew (of both print and electronic media) for on the spot coverage of the stir. There was pell-mell among agitating crowd to grab glimpse of cameras. There were also reports of girls complaining of misbehavior of inebriated men and abusing them in filthy language. Notwithstanding all these unsavory developments, the genuine outrage of the students cannot be underestimated. However even genuine feelings overdone turn chaotic resulting in negative outcome.
The thousands who protested in New Delhi in the first few days of the agitation had no political aspirations. News reports have cited peaceful protesters speaking of such infiltration by some student-youth outfits of the BJP and Baba Ramdev arriving in Delhi with his supporters, typically men in their 40s and 50s. The introduction of such elements coincided with the outbreak of violence, stone-pelting of policemen to instigate the latter to wantonly use lathis, burning of stands at India Gate and attacks on police vehicles. The policeman who died became a casualty in this process, professional politicians had arrived on the scene to extract their pound of flesh, trying to open a new front against the government. Their voice was not that of ordinary Indians, those who had set the ball rolling to protest against the shaming gang-rape incident. Their concern was party politics, pure and simple. Ramdev made this plain, declaring that the present government wanted to “protect rapists”. What former Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh was doing in such company remains a mystery. We must appreciate that only peaceful protests go with the temper of a democracy, and the death of a policeman as a result of violent protests is to be mourned. When we consider the totality of events, it is evident that the call for a special session of Parliament to discuss the recent developments is just a means to politicise the whole affair.
When it was high time for sanity to be restored, on December 24 all these news channels went into frenzy and repeatedly telecast an innocuous query of the Prime Minister to the camera crew just to check whether the audio-video recording was technically alright ‘ theek hai’ ( which means ‘Is it fine?’) . What went wrong was that the PMO had given two time slots for recording to Doordarshan and ANI but apparently the Doordarshan team could not make it on time due to traffic blocks and diversions in the city due the agitation. The ANI decided to telecast the Prime Minister’s message live to 41 television channels with the last line ‘theek hai’ not edited out. This innocuous faux pas was more than enough for the sensation- mongering media –both TV channels all through Dec 24 and the newspapers next day – to make mischievous sensation by willingly subverting the genuine wish of the Prime Minister (rather of the whole nation) to assuage the agitated feelings of the students and bring the impasse to an end. Obviously in their urge to continue to keep the situation tense for their round the clock and pages of coverage, they diverted the attention of viewers and readers to the non-issue of ‘theek hai’ and presenting the Prime Minister in a very poor light. There is no dearth of jobless rumbling and perverted tweeters, who within no time get into the job of tweeting silliest comments on the Prime Minister, knowing very well the most contemptuous of them will get coverage in dailies next day. As expected all dailies on Dec. 25 prominently published on their first pages the tweets against the PM and columns of news about it.
Another distortion the media made was in respect of the statement of Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde in a television interview. When asked whether he would visit India Gate to meet the students, he had said he was not obliged to do so as it would create a wrong precedent. “I had met them in my house, my office.” Of course, he could have stopped there, but again unintentionally added “Tomorrow, if political parties or Maoists demonstrate, why should the home minister go there?”. Always ready to get leaders, whom they desist, on the wrong foot, all the channels and dailies presented this statement as Shinde comparing the students to Maoists.
Incidentally, all these perverted, irresponsible and reckless reporting by the mainstream media was done on the day when television channels CNN-IBN and IBN 7 issued apologies in their bulletins on Dec 24 for presenting “ a wrong and misleading picture” in their stories of land allegedly allotted to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGBT) by the Haryana government for setting up an eye hospital in Gurgaon. The stories were titled, “Gandhi Trust flouting law?” and “Rules bent to aid Gandhis.” The story was broadcast on CNN-IBN 40 times and on IBN 23 times. The RGCT complained to the News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA), a voluntary self-regulatory authority of news channels, that the news reports were factually incorrect and misrepresenting facts, biased and motivated.
NBSA accepted the complaint and said; “The reportage smacks of clear bias and lack of objectivity. The reportage is an example of sensationalisation with the purpose of promoting and improving the image of the channels which is unethical journalism”. The NBSA issued a censure for “willful violation of NBA (News Broadcasters Association) Code of Ethics & Broadcasting Standards and norms of ethical journalism. NBSA also imposed a fine of Rs.One lakh on IBN 18, saying it had violated NBA guidelines “relating to accuracy, impartiality, neutrality, requirement of due diligence and verification of facts prior to telecast, as also the need to carry the version of the person affected.”
But quoting these channels almost all dailies and periodicals carried these distorted and biased stories and most of their readers might still believe those false stories. As it related to a particular institution they approached the authority concerned and obtained relief. But for such intentionally perverted and distorted reportage as mentioned above relating to the Central government, the Prime Minister or the Home Minister, if any attempt is made to correct the perspective, there will be hue and cry of the government gagging the media and suppression of freedom of the Press!
Last but not the least, while sexual violence committed anywhere against anybody by whomsoever concerned is definitely highly condemnable and severely punishable, there is always ‘selective outrage’ against such atrocities exhibited by the media, political parties, social activists and others. Our hapless, poor and voiceless sisters of Tribal and Dalit communities, for ages, had been the forced fodders for the base instincts and debauchery of police and forest personnel, rich landlords and perverted politicians and bureaucrats. At times there will be some cursory report on some such incidents in some obscure corner of dailies and there will be nothing beyond that. Where were these leaders, activists, journalists when scores of tribal women of Vachathi village in Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu were mercilessly gang raped by hundreds of police and forest personnel in 1994, that poor girl Padmini was gang raped by policemen in Annamalai Nagar police station in Chidambaram after assaulting to death her husband Nandagopal in 1993, four Irula tribal women were raped by policemen of Tirukoyilur police station as recently as in July 2011 and now that 13-year old poor girl student Punitha was raped and killed near Tuticorin last week and within two days after that incident another 12 year old Dalit girl was raped by two fellows in her hut near Tiruthuraipoondi ? Why their conscience did not prick?
Even if they don’t contribute positively to dissipate tension to restore sobriety among the agitated sections and productively assist the process of finding solution, the media would do well by not aggravating the situation through their out-of-context, distorted, motivated and perverted reporting. They will also truthfully serve their readers and viewers, if not the nation and its people, if they don’t resort to ‘selective reporting and commentary’ – blowing up issues beyond proportions in some cases relating to their ‘adversaries’ , and totally suppressing true events and developments if they are related to their ‘benefactors’ ! After all ethics of journalism demands objectivity and not subjectivity !
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