Whither the Fourth Estate

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been greatly interested in hearing or reading the latest news. Even in junior school days, I would read newspapers. We were in Pune (spelt as Poona then) at that time and I still remember reading the Free Press Journal, a popular paper of the region. Then, of course, was the daily ritual of hearing the news on All India Radio at 9 pm, a routine from which my father rarely deviated. It was a joy to listen to Melville de Mellow in English and Devki Nandan Pandey in Hindi. The diction was superb, the news content solid and straight-forward. It was not interspersed with opinions or expert interventions. AIR was the only Indian radio station, and you could go to the BBC or Voice of America. We got to hear discussions between adults conducted with due decorum and no raised voices. It was a delight to listen to them as they flitted from subject to subject — politics, literature, arts, sports, etc. One graduated to reading editorials — what with a galaxy of editors in Frank Moraes, Chalapathi Rau, CR Irani, Girilal Jain, Khushwant Singh, etc. The erudite scholarship that they brought and the analysis forced the mind to think and to read extensively in order to absorb more.

Then the age of TV dawned and we had our own Doordarshan, which was more or less a visual replica of AIR, though the news tended to be one-sided. The monopoly of DD did not last long and private channels started coming in a big way. Ultimately, foreign channels also arrived. We now have national English and Hindi language channels, regional language and international channels. All these carry all kinds of shows. The irony though is that except for a couple of online channels and an odd TV channel, the majority are dishing out outright lies as news. The old maxim was: present the correct news but analyse it as you want to. This held true for the print media and the TV. However, today, you have as many versions of an event as the number of channels and the most bizarre analysis. The experts chosen are normally representatives of political parties, retired officers, some journalists and very few domain experts. The anchor is the commander-in-chief of the show and leads the discussion through sheer lung power and the ability to tune out opposing views, also by browbeating any dissidents among the experts. These are not debates but shouting matches and are on predictable lines, because the biases of the channels and the handpicked experts are known. Such is the depth of vulgarity of tone, tenor and content that a normal civilised citizen cannot endure the torture for more than a few minutes. It is only the fanatics among the audience who can survive and hang on, the rest opt out in search of other channels, but where are the other channels? They are spewing out their own special poison. The only option left is BBC, CNN, etc, which do not carry much news about India.

At the moment, SS Rajput suicide occupies prime time, I’m not a movie buff, but I understand he was an exceptional talent whose death is a great loss to the cinema industry. So far, so good — if his family suspects foul play, let them go to the police and get it investigated. I may mention in passing that the Mumbai Police is still one of the best and there was no reason to doubt its integrity even before a complaint was made. Why is the Bihar government intervening at the highest level and why is the CBI/ED there? Why above all have the TV channels made it a 24/7 tamasha? Is this media trial really the only issue confronting us in these perilous times, or are we being distracted by the Pied Piper and being made to dance to his tunes? The entire nexus of corporate ownership of media and its fealty to the political bosses needs to be thoroughly examined.

Now let me take up the Covid tragedy, the forgotten migrants, the soldiers on harsh mountainous terrain in not only Ladakh but all along the treacherous LAC and LoC, and the shattered economy and its corresponding abysmal unemployment. How many studio studs have walked the distance with the migrants? Where are the migrants now? How many of these experts visited the hospitals and told stories of what is happening there, stories of horror we get to hear from other sources? How many of these armchair warriors have gone and reported on the conditions under which our soldiers live and fight? How many have an idea of what the approaching winter will mean to our sons and brothers there? The largest contraction in the economy and its corresponding destruction of jobs and livelihoods — should that not be prime time?

My dear friends in the TV and print media, this war in Ladakh, the challenges being faced because of corona and the free-falling economy are not going to be won by shouting in the studios; they will be won in the field and for that you have to present a sober, truthful face, inform the public and motivate them. Go to hospitals, talk to doctors and patients and their families and report. These issues of national importance should be the focus of your presentation, not to be hidden in the obscurity of charts and slides or diminished in the din of a Bollywood saga.

Thankfully, it is in the print media that a few honourable exceptions are still holding the fort. The Fourth Estate is an inalienable part of our democracy. It is the watchdog which guards against corruption, misinformation and lies. Today, social media has been weaponised by vested interests and lobbies which spread misinformation and hate. They affect elections even in other advanced countries and thereby dominate policymaking and its subsequent fallouts. It falls on the shoulders of the traditional media, TV and print, to uphold the values of honest, independent and unbiased reporting. Nixon was brought down by the unwavering role played by the media. History will remember this period. Let it not be said that the men and women of the Indian media were stifled and hushed by the posturing of bullies and corporate houses dancing to the pulls and pushes of the puppeteers. Will the traditional media rise to the occasion and show us the unvarnished face of truth? Time will tell.

— The writer is ex-chairman of UPSC, former Manipur Governor and served as J&K DGP