On passing a verdict

If the real pursuit of journalism is to reveal concealed facts with social, moral, and even historical meanings, then the media has an incredible opportunity to contribute to social justice in India

I got a call at 3 am on March 16 from the Constitution Club of India to tell me that the AICC had conveniently usurped the hall I had booked weeks in advance at the club for that evening, leaving me high and dry. Left with no other option, I had to put together my plan for holding a public discussion on the nexus of media, judiciary, and indeed political power, at an adjacent and rather unattractive venue on the premises of the club.

We proceeded despite the irritants because the subject of the discussion was an important one. Given the increasing numbers in India of victims of media persecution even before the courts step in with their verdict, the relationship between media and the judiciary is even more complex, especially when power — Government or corporate — is involved. On the other hand, media can also be an effective watchdog that strives for better governance. There have been great and courageous examples of journalism where democracy’s fourth estate has unearthed ‘whodunnit’ cases aiding or even preceding justice at court by typically holding up truth to power.

A panelist at our discussion on  March 16, Shweta Punj — a feisty and passionate journalist, who has authored several cover stories for India Today magazine — strongly endorsed the freedom enjoyed by Indian journalists to delve into investigations and report as well as the positive role journalists can play in meting out justice. She drew out the example of a November 2017 cover story for India Today on child sex workers, titled ‘Human trafficking for sex: Thousands of girls live in slavery while society remains silent’. She had investigated the issue and written that story. As a consequence of Shweta’s story, the issue of child sex workers was brought up in the Indian Parliament.

Prominent lawyer Tanveer Ahmed Mir, who was the defence advocate in the 2G as well as the Aarushi Talwar and Hemraj double murders, slammed Indian media, especially television, for the role they play in building public perceptions. Poet and contemporary dancer, Tishani Doshi, who was also on the panel, said the sensationalisation of news has kept her away from following current affairs on television at home.

One of India’s foremost lawyers, Gopal Anand, too agreed with Tanveer, giving the example of the 2G spectrum and the coal allocation cases, where the media frenzy named the two issues as ‘scams’ even before the court procedures passed their verdict. The latter was an issue I too have had the misfortune to witness from close quarters. It seemed to me that one of the accused, Naveen Jindal, was made the scapegoat in an issue where many more were involved. Also, the media had made it seem that the CAG report on coal mine allocation stated a `1.86 crore ‘loss’ to the Government, whereas this amount was mentioned by the CAG as gains by the allottees.

The information that we receive about events, an individual, or communities, with which or whom we are not directly connected, is usually an interpretation by someone else of what that person perceived to be true. Even if it is a first hand experience, we are prone to suffer from a subjective bias; often what we perceive in the moment is conditioned by our past experience. “There are no facts, only interpretations,” wrote Nietzsche. The interpretations of any event in the world, he says, are as numerous as the perspectives from which the world can be viewed.

Have we perhaps then never seen reality? The question is not just a metaphysical one, as Nietzsche had initially proposed. Instead, it is an important one to consider today, especially when the answer has implications on the choice between granting justice or punishment. This is to put it mildly, notwithstanding the case where punishment is life-threatening. Further, the question becomes a sinister one when power intervenes to influence perceptions, prosecuting the innocent.

Publisher of The Hindu, N Ram writes: “There has been an ebb and flow of public engagement (in India) with the results of investigative journalism, in response to larger events, trends, and issues in politics, economy, culture, society, and international relations.”

In India and the world, media has the power to position certain information in a way that risks transforming reality. Author Gabriel García Márquez had started out as a journalist. He writes in a speech titled ‘Journalism: The Best Job in the World’, delivered in Los Angeles in 1996, that the education and training of young journalists must “rest on three central pillars: The priority of aptitudes and vocations; the certainty that investigation is not a professional speciality but that all journalism should, by definition, be investigative; and the awareness that ethics are not an occasional condition but should always accompany journalism like the buzz accompanies the blowfly”.

In his book, Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age (2013), George Brock also identifies verification, sense-making, bearing witness, and investigation as the core of journalism. Marquez and Brock thus both emphasise that truth-seeking, verification, placing events in context and in historical perspective, analysing independently and freely, writing justly and ethically, should become an integral part of journalism.

Indeed one of the conclusions in our discussion at The Constitution Club, too, was that for media, the judiciary, and political powers to work together towards the truth, each need to act ethically and responsibly.

Ultimately, if the objective of journalism is creating sensationalism or gaining TRPs, then media plays the dangerous role of diverting perception from the truth. In fact, in such a case, media often then creates the ‘truth’. However, if the real pursuit of journalism is — as it should be — to reveal concealed or inaccessible facts with social, moral, and even historical meanings, then the media possesses an incredible opportunity to contribute to social justice in India.   

Miniya is the author of Indian Instincts: Essays on Freedom and Equality in India, Penguin Random House (2018), and the CEO of Sustain Labs Paris, the world’s first sustainability incubator.

Email: miniya@labsparis.com   (The views expressed are her own)