Mediocre media

When I began my career as a journalist with The New Indian Express, I had several expectations in my mind. I thought I should get a chance to stand by the aam admi; I should expose the unfair business in every sector for the sake of society; I should tell the untold stories, the unseen scenarios and the real but unknown heroes. But all expectations vanished into thin air as I stepped into Mysore Bureau of The New Indian Express.

As a youngster, I was proud to be a part of a community, which was once blessed by a bunch of courageous journalists, who stood by the interest of common people at the expense of their life.
After working with print media for three years and six months in online media, I realized that I am a part of mediocre media. I realized how mediocre we are taking the way we handle various serious issues into consideration.

First of all, let me make an apology to Arushi, a 14-year-old girl, who was brutally murdered at her home few months ago. And secondly let us have a close look at the way media handled the issue.

What went wrong in Arushi case? Why media gave prominent consideration to an otherwise ordinary murder case (taking the number of murders happening in our country into consideration).

One thing I can’t understand is that why media, including print and electronic, gave their own perception into Arushi murder case, when cops, who were supposed to reveal details about the progress of the investigation, were not in a position to crack the case.

Media gave their own perception, they produced culprits before police without any solid evidence, they gave twist to the story, whenever they wanted to give, they forced cops to arrest Arushi’s father, who had to undergo 50-day imprisonment. CBI cracked case later. But is that enough to compensate the mental stigma that Arushi’s father had undergone, when media and police haunted him for all wrong reasons?

Let us go back to the journalism classes. I still remember my professor’s opinion: “We are here to report the incident or an event. We are not allowed to create confusion among the people; we are not allowed to create tension by giving wrong information and statements; we should not be prejudiced about the issues.”

Irreverent media
In fact, media had trespassed all the basic tenets of Journalism in Arushi murder case, which found her father Rajesh Talwar innocent and declared three others as culprits. The top guys like Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai behaved like madcap interviewing almost all Tom Dick and Harry, which failed to give any clues to top sleuths.

And print media, on the other hand, came out with an analysis or two on a daily basis, with reporters exhibiting their verbal jugglery and language skills, but I saw a clear case of character assassination of Arushi, an innocent girl. With media focusing Arushi murder case, the killing of 15 Gujjars in Rajasthan (an incident that should have been given top priority by media) went unnoticed. Just imagine, how media charts the news. Is it based on the news value? Or is it based on the profile of the parties involved?

And just have a look at the Arushi case. Media named the issue as Arushi murder case. Not Arushi-Hemaraj twin murder case, another irreverence from the part of media (was it intentional? Or was that because Hemaraj is not hailing from an upper class family? I haven’t found anyone in CNN/IBN or NDTV or Headlines Today or Times Now making hue and cry about Hemaraj’s murder)

Look at the similar incidents on subsequent days in May, 2008
10-yr-old boy gets crushed under Blueline bus in Uttam Nagar on May 16
6- yr-old girl, a rickshaw puller's daughter, found raped and stabbed to death on May 17
8 yr old killed by squall, 4yr old killed by candle fire, 18 yr old beaten up and 2 honor killings on May 19
6 yr old Shabana buried alive on May 20
6 yr old, 14 yr old and a youth. All dead in separate incidents on 21
9 yr old electrocuted to death due to negligence on 23
Board results out. Some suicides
8 yr old was molested by teacher on 24
12 yr old raped on 25

However, kudos to Mainstream media, which claimed to have given justice to Arushi. But coverage given to Arushi murder case forced to me to believe that media also started discriminating news as 'high' and 'low.' To be more precise they have a clear cut agenda about how a news related to a higher class family should appear and how a news related to a lower class family should appear. The above statistics proved that justice was denied to poor people, as nobody noticed the headline “6 year old girl, a rickshaw puller’s daughter, found raped and stabbed to death.” Another news, which should have been given priority.

The reason is simple: A rickshaw puller’s daughter does not belong to a high-class family. But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t deserve justice. Why media kept mum on that issue, why media gave focus on Arushi murder case when another gruesom incident took place in the very next day Arushi incident? Are we going back to the old colonial ideology - divide and rule - in a different way?

Folks, this is how the media works in my country.

We (media) can create a Nazi criminal over an e-mail coming from nowhere. we can create exclusives from zilch; we will enjoy writing about SRK, Big B, Aiswarya Rai, we will enjoy writing about the new super-bazaars of multinationals, we will sell the editorial, we will enjoy giving new twists to every issue, we can give clean chit to any one; we can punish anyone; we will hold interviews, discussions, panel discussions, face-to-face, point-counter points, analysis and even go for an investigation at other's risk. We will do all sort of dirty games, which keep ourselves in the limelight. That is the power of fourth estate! Got it dude?

In fact, this is what we (journo) want to do rather than breaking a case by keeping journalism ethics. We say: “Good-bye journalism ethics. You are dumped”