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".
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