by Manjula Lal

Have journalistic norms become a casualty of the pace of change in mass media? Many media persons seem to have abdicated their responsibility, suggesting that you should mechanically do your job and not bother your head about journalistic ethics, commitment, quality or -- perish the thought -- concern for the reader, that faceless creature who continues to spend Rs 50-odd per month to keep the whole newspaper enterprise going, in spite of all the new media in town.

Such abdication of responsibility is seen in the all-too-common breach of the fundamental reporter's rule about cross-checking of facts. If this is pointed out, pat comes the retort: nobody does it anyway, the higher-ups want only one version of the truth, or that's the way things are done in this particular organisation. How many seniors would tell her that the norms of the profession as a whole dictate otherwise, and that one's loyalty is above all to one's chosen vocation and not to a particular organisation?

Across the hallway, a sub-editor will have several excuses for putting the copy on the page without correcting language, factual error or clear bias -- in short, the standard work for which he has been hired. One of the most outrageous ones, which is actually quite common, is: well, the reporter is getting her byline on it, so let her expose herself before the world. Or: if the management doesn't care (or, more likely, know any better) then why should we? Anyway, goes the argument, why are such hopeless reporters hired in the first place? Thus all responsibility can be shrugged off on one pretext or the other.

Taking up a simple case of reporting from The Hindustan Times (HT), Delhi's market leader: a report in the December 13, 2001 issue of the paper said on Page 1, "The first heavy fog of the season saw the much advertised Instrument (Aided) Landing System (ILS) failed to deliver: over 20 flights were either delayed or diverted." Yet a report in The Indian Express on the same day said that though the new ILS system was ready for use, it was not yet in operation. HT had obviously rushed to print on hearsay, without checking the official facts.

But the story was not over. On December 26, the same paper (HT) carried a report on a local page titled, "Fog will no longer disrupt flights". This time the source of the news was a function in which the union home minister launched the new ILS system. The report went into details of the great new state-of-the-art system. Although one could say the reporter merely reported what was said at the function, an interesting point is: why did no other paper report the same function?

Obviously, they were not going to swallow the Airport Authority's line, and were waiting to see what would happen when the fog really set in. It says much about sourcing of news: HT continues to respond to all invitations sent by the government publicity machinery, as well as accept press releases as the gospel. Other papers have learnt to treat these with a healthy irreverence and give more credence to their own sources.

Two days later, fog hit the city. Now comes an HT report: "Fog still disrupts flights" reporting on how flights were held up for seven hours as planes were not equipped to make use of the upgraded system. This kind of embarrassment is not new to the paper. Reporters in fact hardly ever bother to cross-check facts. Two months ago, a report (more like a publicity piece) written about the new visa system introduced by the new US ambassador Robert Blackwill had to be killed because it went into raptures about the 'queueless' system introduced by him at the consulate.

But how could one say whether it would be as great as it was touted to be without seeing how it worked on the ground? Moreover, the reporter had not even questioned how the new system, based on applications by post, would work in the middle of the anthrax mail scare. So the saga continues.

On December 28, HT carried a local story on how kids detained at Prayas Home run by the social welfare department were given poor quality food and generally kept in unhygienic environs. It was based on a report on a three-member committee sent by the High Court to assess the functioning of the Home. Curiously, the last para of the report said that the third member of the committee, 'in an independent report', gave a clean chit to the Home. This was not checked out.

The reporter had not paid any visit to the Home. Naturally, the next day, those who had not been heard contacted the editor concerned and the paper felt it was fair to carry a report on how the staff had not received salaries in October, and that an amount of Rs 16 lakh was due from the government for its management. So if this is mere sloppiness, is it so bad? Let's take an example from other professions to illustrate the point.

Doctors, we all know, are supposed to take the Hippocratic oath when they begin practice. But if you ask a medical consultant working for a private hospital / clinic why he prescribes expensive diagnostic tests which may not quite be necessary, he could well say: That's what the management expects, in order to run the enterprise. Or, I have to keep commercial goals in mind, otherwise how can I expect the owners to pay me? Or, patients who come to such places expect to pay through their noses -- else they would go to a government hospital.

And at precisely such a government hospital, you could well run into a harassed junior doctor who, when asked why he is allowing re-use of hypodermic needles, or neglecting a poor patient, can cite so many 'reasons': we are so overworked anyway. What can we do, the nurses and sanitary staff are heavily unionised. Or that these things are in the control of the administration, and he can't be expected to interfere.

Applying the same general logic, a lawyer can well give a plethora of excuses for putting forth false witnesses: the whole system is so archaic, so many judges are corrupt, everybody does it, etc. If you believe in some kind of code of ethical conduct, however, you could well turn around and ask why the person joined a profession which he held in such low esteem, and shouldn't he perhaps do his bit to shore up its credibility?

Getting back to the media, it is getting increasingly difficult, thanks to the high staff turnover, to orient new recruits about journalistic codes of conduct. Some newspaper organisations have them down in writing, some enforce them orally but strictly, and some don't seem to have any policy at all. At least half the staff has not been through a course in journalism, or may not be able to relate the textbook mores they learnt to day-to-day situations.

There are excuses galore available to editors for not holding the reporter to the sacrosanct rule that he or she MUST get the other side of the story, and that the story will be held up till the person has been given the right to reply. For the affected party, the usual route is to try and get a rejoinder printed by the editor. Failing that, there is only the Press Council. The Times of India group used to have an ombudsman but no longer does so. In newspapers abroad, there is a Reader's Editor. But in cases that do not hurt a reader directly, as in the examples given above, would he really be expected to get worked up? That has to be an internal quality control exercise within the organisation.

For life is not so simple. Your actions do rebound on you as an individual, and to the collective to which you belong. For instance, while you were under the impression that the environment had to be saved for future generations, global warming took away the pleasure of the winter chill in this hot tropical country. When you allow surrogate advertising for liquor on television, you endanger an entire generation. And as you allow slip-shod reporting to make to the pages of your paper, some reader somewhere loses respect for the journalistic fraternity. A newspaper crackles loudly a reader discards it in disgust. A news channel loses eyeballs as a viewer clicks the remote to get away from a job badly done. Next time at a social gathering, or on a reporting assignment, somebody might just turn around and heap contempt upon you because of the profession to which you belong, but which you have not done the right thing by.

Manjula Lal is a freelance journalist who has worked in the Economic Times and Hindustan Times among other newspapers.

Courtesy www.thehoot.org

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