Tavleen Singh - A media lynching
There is a rule in journalism that most of
us follow. It is not a rule etched in stone but an unwritten one based on that
old idiom that dog does not eat dog. When I tried to find out where the idiom
originated and why, all I came up with was the explanation that ‘one
disreputable person will not harm another disreputable person’. You do not need
me to tell you that disreputable people abound in the media, but on account of
the dog not eating dog principle, we of the mighty fourth estate almost never
attack our comrades.
This week I am going to break this rule and
write a critique of our newest English news channel, Republic. Not because I
have anything personal against Arnab Goswami or against his frenetic,
haranguing style of television journalism, but because he is breaking a
journalistic rule that is definitely etched in stone. This is that journalists
must not usurp the powers of the criminal justice system under any
circumstances. If an investigation is deliberately slowed down or botched on
account of political interference or money power, we have every right to point
this out and we should.
But, to set up a kangaroo court in which we become
judge, jury and executioner is not just wrong but dangerous. This is what Republic TV did last week with
their ‘investigation’ into the death of Shashi Tharoor’s wife.
These reporters then appeared on screen to
declare that Tharoor’s ‘goons’ assaulted them and pulled a woman reporter’s
hair. There were no visuals to corroborate this but plenty of visuals that
showed some very goon-like questioning by Republic reporters. Most reporters
have had at least one door slammed in their face at some point in their career,
by someone who did not want to answer questions. And this is what the visuals
showed happening. Nothing more. Republic reporters used
melodrama and
embellishment to make themselves the story, but this was not all they did
wrong.
What was really wrong with Republic’s
supposed ‘scoop’ was that Tharoor was judged and sentenced on national
television. His late wife who has no means to defend herself was charged with
being involved with the Russian mafia in Dubai. And the fantastical theory that
she died from some mysterious Russian poison was flung about as if it were a
routine, credible possibility. If these things are true, it should have been
Republic’s role to investigate and provide details. If the police did not do
their job, it is the duty of the media to draw attention to the gaps. And, if
the man who conducted the postmortem was leaned on by powerful people to
declare that Sunanda Pushkar died from natural causes, then it is valid to
reveal every detail. Beyond this journalists cannot and should not go.
Republic seems impatient to prove that it
is different to other news channels and that it is prepared to do stories that
others are afraid to touch. This is a terrific objective and may they succeed
in achieving it. But to pass off a media lynching as investigative journalism
causes serious damage to its own reputation and to the reputation of the Indian
media in general. It also whips up a passion for lynching in an ugly season of
lynchings. Social media is awash with people who want to see Tharoor arrested and
jailed. False claims that he was never interrogated by the police are being
spread around as fact. The worrying underside of this story, clearly evident on
social media, is that people whose political loyalties lie with the BJP revile
Tharoor as someone they describe as a ‘Lutyens darling’.
Once more I apologise for being the first
person to misuse the name of the architect who built New Delhi. For those who
do not understand why the word Lutyens is used so much these days, let me
explain that it is seen as representative of a class of people who are
privileged enough to live in this most exclusive enclave. What haters of the
word Lutyens seem not to have noticed is that more than 99 per cent of the
people who actually live in Lutyens Delhi are politicians and bureaucrats.
These are the new Rajas of India and most
of them come from the same middle-class background as those on social media who
spit the word out as a term of abuse. For the record, there are no ‘Lutyens
journalists’. Only good journalists and bad journalists.
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/a-media-lynching-republic-arnab-goswami-shashi-tharoor-sunanda-pushkar-case-4654621see also
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