Thursday, September 15, 2016

News outlets and facts - A Divorced Couple

I was recently watching a video posted by Youtuber “Nerdwriter1” (someone whose content I highly recommend) on how fact checking can be used as a tool by news anchors and debate moderators while reporting/moderating the presidential race and the upcoming debates (click here to see). 

One crucial sentence in the video grabbed my attention - “But what are news organizations if not truth squads? Free people the world over still care about facts; and we look to our news media to sort through bullshit and lies to find them.”

Though the video wasn’t related to it, this made me question the validity of the statement in the context of news media as a reliable source of factual information. Do we really believe the news that is presented to us today? If so, is that a reasonable assumption to make? Or should we take everything with a pinch of salt, and recheck every story across sources? Unfortunately, from an Indian perspective, there have been numerous instances in the recent past that have given the lie to the statement that news media outlets (NMOs) can be relied on to provide accurate information; or even be expected to do basic fact checking before reporting on something. This is definitely the case for television and social media, where the ‘instant’ factor is the key USP.

Let us start with what is perhaps one of the most basic and shocking errors in news reporting – EVER! The below picture has been doing the rounds on social media.



ABP News stated that the Cauvery water dispute is between Bengaluru and Karnataka! For anyone with even a basic knowledge of Indian geography, or even current affairs, would spot the mistake right away – and we’re talking about a news organization here! Now, if they had taken even a few seconds to just proof read what was going to be printed on screen, a lot of public bashing on Facebook and WhatsApp could have been avoided.  Of course, it’s not like most of our NMOs are capable of feeling embarrassment, so I guess they wouldn’t care anyway.
Funnily enough, I was trying to find some kind of confirmation this story was true since I had only seen pictures which could have been easily doctored – unlike our NMOs, I felt the urge to fact check before putting something out there. And the beauty of it is; I found it on ABP News’s own YouTube channel – click here to see. 8:44 of the video has it for all to see. I wish I could say that I was surprised the video is still there, but I am not.

In the above example, there are no real victims (except for ABP News and common sense). We can just laugh it off as a display of utter stupidity. But let’s take another example where the stakes are a little bit higher. I was reading an article about how actor Randeep Hooda corrected NDTV journalist Sunetra Choudhury, who tweeted about alleged rapes in Haryana (click to read). She also made certain inciting statements on Kashmir, but let us ignores that. The fact that she didn’t actually accept her error (forget apologize for it), but instead tried to sidestep it by showering praise on the actor’s awareness is especially disturbing. Indian journalists have a very bad track record of accepting their mistakes. Even if we were to ignore that, it is a worrying sign for Indian journalism that a journalist, whose job it is to state facts, is corrected on factual information where there is no room for misinterpretation or judgement.

But there have been far more severe cases, where the lack of basic fact checking (forget investigative journalism) has damaged someone’s reputation. Out of the many examples, let me talk about two instances. I’ll start with the now (in)famous “Rohtak bravehearts” (Link to the Wikipedia page on the issue.) A video showing two sisters beating three young men with a belt who allegedly harassed them was prominently displayed across all NMOs (I unfortunately don’t remember who started it), and a lot of people saw it as an instance of the abused females standing up against their male abusers and a milestone in women’s liberation. Of course, everyone was too busy celebrating the bravery of the girls to hear the other side of the story. The events were questioned only when a second video of them thrashing another guy surfaced. Since then, there has been an investigation, multiple witnesses have come forward giving a completely contradictory story, and even lie-detector tests have been conducted. I haven’t been able to find anything on the current status of things (which is of course not surprising since follow up on news by our media is unheard of). As such I cannot comment either way on who was in the wrong here. If only our NMOs could also shows such restraint.

The other example I wanted to talk about is the Jasleen Kaur case. This is where Jasleen Kaur accused Sarabjit Singh of harassing her at a traffic signal in Delhi. She posted his picture and described the event on Facebook, after which it was picked up by the media and sensationalized, not surprisingly only looking at one side of the story. Sarabjit Singh was harassed in return, not only by the public playing judge, jury and executioner; but also by news channel Times Now. This story ends on a positive note though – Times Now has been told to issue an apology and pay a fine for its reportage in this case by the News Broadcasting Standards Authority (Link to the news article). Though it may not be enough to compensate Sarabjit for the trauma he went through, we can atleast hope that this would deter NMOs from irresponsible journalism. Though the cynic in me knows this will not happen. If you’re wondering as to what Times Now did that caused a slap on the wrist, just watch the linked video, which shows Times Now reporter Pooja Shali bullying and harassing Sarabjit. (I had commented on this on Facebook linking the video on Times Now’s YouTube channel where they boasted on Pooja’s ‘brave’ journalism, but unlike ABP News, they had the sense of removing the video. However, we live in the world of the internet, and what is dead may never die.)

All of these are clear cases of irresponsible journalism. I have purposely focused only on reporting news without checking facts, and avoided topics like
  • ·         Journalists playing judge, jury and executioner and basically labelling suspects as criminals (Times Now labelled Sarabjit “the pervert”), influencing ‘the court of public opinion’
  • ·         Journalists who focus on a single agenda and cannot look beyond it, thereby losing the ability to on anything objectively and the right to preach ‘journalistic integrity’ (the main reason for the term ‘presstitutes’ being coined, used and abused in social media)
  • ·         The priorities of NMOs focusing on attention grabbing headlines and news items of little or no value over real news (the woefully late coverage of the recent Chennai floods is a case in point)
  • ·         The mad dash to report any and every development as an exclusive, and present facts without any substantive evidence (the coverage of the Indrani Mukerjea case)
  • ·         The propensity of NMOs to sensationalize topics and try to sway public opinion (Times Now’s coverage of India’s loss to Australiain the 2015 World Cup, which was met with widespread criticism)
  • ·         Journalists not apologizing for mistakes made, or burying it under other stuff so that no one notices
  • ·         Irresponsible coverage of events like the Mumbai terror attacks and Pathankot terror attacks, where the coverage was akin to army secrets being leaked to terrorists (the Supreme Court pulled up media for its reporting of the Mumbai attacks)
Despite not touching on far more serious topics, I think it’s clear to see the sorry state our NMOs are in. To be fair, this isn’t an epidemic exclusive to India. And you cannot paint all journalists with the same brush. But that doesn’t make it less disturbing. While many other problems can be attributed to a shift in the way the role of journalists is perceived and the important of allegiances in our cruel world, the examples I have mentioned are clear misses. Nothing to be debated there. Fact checking is probably the first (and most important) rule of journalism. And the fact that pretty much all NMOs - in their mad dash for ‘exclusives’ and TRPs - ignore it and don’t even care about being wrong, is indicative of the fact that the rot has set in.

Shashi Tharoor put it very eloquently, as only he can. “Television news in India, with far too many channels competing 24/7 for the same sets of eyeballs and ratings, has long since given up any pretence of providing a public service, with the "breaking news" story privileging sensation over substance. (Indian TV epitomises the old crack about why television is called a "medium": "Because it is neither rare nor well done.")”

The recently released movie ‘Rustom’ showed how the media had the power to influence a jury. The media does have great power to influence public opinion, and more importantly, to bring about change (I’ve gotten tired of hearing about the CNN IBN impact!!!). But, as Uncle Ben taught us, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. The fact that our NMOs are ignoring their responsibility to report facts accurately, and at the same time boasting about their power and journalistic integrity, shows the deep rooted hypocrisy in what was once an esteemed profession.

I would like to conclude by appealing to our NMOs directly – if you’re reading, please get your act together. A lot of people rely on you to provide us a view of our city, our state, our nation and the world. I think we can wait a few minutes for you to check your facts before splashing it all over the place as an "exclusive".