Can The Media Pledge To Reclaim Its Space on World Press Freedom Day?

It is May 3 - the World Press Freedom Day - time for the annual discussion on what the media should be, but isn’t, and how press freedom must be protected when in reality, globally no one is being able to prevent its complete sabotage.

Press freedom is universally recognised as the cornerstone of human rights and an invaluable pillar of any democratic system of government. However, impediments to press freedom, including threats to life, livelihood and reputation, led to the United Nations General Assembly declaring May 3 as World Press Freedom Day to remind governments of their duty to uphold freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration Of Human Rights as also to generate awareness about the importance of media freedom.

In an ideal world, information is a public good and it is the responsibility of journalists to obtain vital information that the wealthy and powerful do not want placed in the public domain, and to act as intelligent and impartial disseminators of the information in the public interest.

The most important function of the media is disseminating and analysing information. In doing so, the media must also inevitably play a crucial role in holding the government and other figureheads of authority accountable, acting as watchdogs to check corruption and abuse of power, advocating transparency, safeguarding democratic principles, setting the agenda for meaningful change, promoting political participation and fostering public awareness and discourse.

Since it is not an ideal world, press freedom comes under savage attack from governments, corporations, the mafia and other vested interests, but the worst and most unexpected ambushes come from within the media organisation itself.

As a journalist, I worked for 21 years working with some of the largest and most influential media brands in India. My first landmark expose occurred in 2007, uncovering the Rs 1.76 lakh crore 2G scandal, which exposed  360 degree corruption across the ruling UPA government, the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s Office, the telecom ministry, the finance ministry, government institutions, the CBI, and others, with the investigative trail over the years eventually leading all the way to the then first family - Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law, Robert Vadra as well as various Chief Ministers. 

The CAG independently verified the authenticity of my 2G reports, including the estimates of loss to the exchequer, and the Supreme Court, in 2012, cancelled all 122 telecom licences and sent the Telecom Minister, Telecom Secretary and several important politicians and corporate officials to jail. The outcome was enormous and the corruption cases against the perpetrators of the various scams that I uncovered are still alive in the courts.

My reports served to shine the light on systemic corruption, uncovered uncomfortable and suppressed truths in the public interest, identified the villains from the victims, exposed a breach of public trust, forced a demand for accountability in a country yearning for real democracy, and set the stage for political and moral reform.

The outcome of these exposes was that the 2014 General Election in India was fought on three primary issues: corruption, governance and governments’ political accountability - a first in India’s 67 years of Independence.

Going by the accounts of the powerful journalists across the globe, one would have thought this would be a time of personal glory, of elevation, encouragement and acknowledgement of journalistic prowess. However, it was just the opposite. I became an outcaste within the organisations that I worked in as well as the entire media fraternity. It seems everyone who knew me was affiliated to either powerful politicians or business houses and since they were badly shaken up, I had to pay and the only way they could make me suffer was at the hands of my own fraternity.

My colleagues took to publicly humiliating me or ignoring me, even relaying information about me for the consumption of their powerful affiliates, who were collectively looking to shut me down. The fact that none of my colleagues, all much more senior and in much more important positions stood up for me, made me lose respect for them. What we say is not important, it is what we do that reveals the truth about who we are and what we represent.

Very quickly I learnt that the criteria for becoming the Editor of the publication / news organisation is not capability, as one might innocently imagine, but pliability. So I was clearly never eligible, despite all that I managed to achieve as a woman journalist, and that too, in my thirties.

World Press Freedom Day: Unveiling the Rot in Journalism

Speaking of gender, another red flag in the media is a persistent and unbreakable glass ceiling for women which is painful to acknowledge. How can we protest against inequitable environments, when we have consented to one in our own house? But my experience taught me that men are not the only villains responsible for keeping women away from the top slots. Some of the most sexist comments that I have received in my career have been from women and not ordinary women, but women posing as feminists. Women are the least likely to help other women, and most likely to pull each other down, so, in a sense, however far we are able to advance in our careers is actually only because of a few men in the profession who value our professional capabilities, if even to a limited extent. Sexual harassment committees within media organisations are also there as window dressing and wholly ineffective, because they are headed by women whose careers are dependent on the goodwill of their male colleagues. 

During the course of my investigative work, the dominant concern within the media organisations was always commercial and monetary, which would make them compromise on their news standards in order to keep the government and advertisers happy. Yet they were smart enough to keep the investigative work going, till they had the government on their knees and willing to pay handsomely to make the nuisance (me) go away.

Since the government is also a large and powerful consumer of advertising space, its influence over the media has, over time, become dominant and therefore unhealthy. 

Once intellectual spaces, it is no surprise then that newsrooms have now been converted to factories, engaged in the ceaseless replication and regurgitation of routine stories that are brazenly sensationalised to compensate for the deliberate blackout of sensitive exclusive stories that will “rock the boat”. 

When independent enquiry, special stories, investigative reports are undertaken and published, it is usually not in the interest of “pure” journalism, but with the limited interest of increasing circulation and short-term credibility. Once that is achieved, ‘watchdog’ journalism is quickly abandoned in favour of ‘lapdog’ journalism.

Lapdog journalism is more convenient for everyone and is achieved by hiring people with little or no intellectual capacity and converting them into handsomely paid newsroom ‘administrators’, whose skill is to assess, whose interests are to be accommodated, how much and on what terms, and then ‘fix’ news accordingly. Rather than “setting the agenda’ in the public interest to build progressive, transparent and abundant societies, they set a diabolical ‘personal’ agenda for themselves and the organisation.

Journalism is one of the most noble professions that exists, but it is being trafficked for power or money or both. This has led to a loss of media credibility, identity and purpose.

How can journalists function as watchdogs of society and demand absolute fairplay, when they  cannot have a progressive, non-discriminatory, advancement-through-merit alone environment in their own house?

Independent journalists who have been suffocated in such environments that muffle their intellect and ability, have tried to turn to social media platforms, but such platforms do not generate adequate resources for meaningful investigative enquiry that will allow new information and therefore, fresh perspectives and discourse in the public space. They also have few and fickle readers, unwilling to pay for better content.

Social media which purportedly gives everyone a ‘voice’ has only muddied the waters further by creating an unbearable cacophony in which it is impossible to sift the grain from the chaff. People presenting themselves as commentators, citizen journalists, analysts, intellectuals, political & social commentators and moral compasses for society with no achievements to grant them any authenticity are extremely dangerous, especially for an audience which is vulnerable and unable to identify charlatans.

According to all the evidence that I have presented, it is fairly clear that the fundamental reason for the ever-growing rot in journalism is a human one - the willingness of vast masses of people to crawl when asked to bend, and to submit to their darkest selves, which makes ugly self interest, jealousy and greed an unyielding master.

The media needs to reclaim its space. There can never be any substitute for a real journalist. We require fearless individuals with a strong spiritual core, unshakeable character, powerful reasoning, and no greed for fame, power, or money to qualify.

Serious introspection and an earnest effort to demonstrate credibility and accountability is the need of the hour, rather than just token yowling about its loss of freedom on World Press Freedom Day or any other occasion.

You may write to Shalini Singh at [email protected] | You can also follow her on Substack: https://shalinisinghscribe.substack.com/

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