No publishing house or news channel or journalist should have such vastly different standards with regard to putting out news. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but this must be kept out of the news pages or news sections of TV channels.
By Premangshu Ray
It is high time that the media, which is known as the Fourth Estate or fourth power, gets back on track and restarts doing its job with integrity.
This is essential not only for the sake of the society as a whole but also to ensure that the media regains its reputation as the conscience keeper of society and continues to be looked upon for impartial dissemination of information. This is more so as the media has traditionally been known to wield influence in politics, an attribute that is said to have led to the coinage of the term Fourth Estate.
Even a cursory review of what is published in the newspapers or aired on news channels would show that this needs reiteration as unbiased coverage of news has been thrown out of the window.
Wow, $21m!
A case in point is the USAID controversy. The Telegraph was one of the very few English language papers that gave prominence to the statement by US President Donald Trump that USAID gave $21 million to Prime Minister Narendra Modi “for voter turnout”. This, the paper pointed out in the next sentence, came a day after Trump called the funding a “kickback scheme”. The paper did not mince words or dilute the issue. USAID boot on other foot, it said in the headline.
The Free Press Journal also carried the copy prominently. However, the twist that it gave of the Congress latching on to Trump’s statement in this regard diluted the seriousness of the assertion by the US President of “USD21 million going to my friend Prime Minister Modi in India for voter turnout.”
The Times of India carried the report on Page 1 but not as the lead copy. It further sought to dilute the import of the statement with the headline ‘Trump spares neither oppn nor govt with USAID claims’. It watered it down much further with phrases such as “he of torrential verbiage”, “purportedly allocated by USAID to increase voter turnout in India”, and “an off-the-cuff remark”.
Deccan Herald, a major English paper in South India, carried the news in much the same manner on Page 8, its second Nation page. Just as TOI did with its report on Page 1, DH diluted the significance of the news with the headline ‘Congress corners BJP over Trump’s $21mn claim’, thus shifting the focus from the claim itself to the attack by the Congress. It went on to shift focus much more by the words “In indications that it would not go soft on its I.N.D.I.A-partner AAP, the Congress put Arvind Kejriwal in the line of fire.”
In contrast, when Trump had said on Wednesday in Miami that USAID had spent $21 million in India, most papers not only latched on to the news but also displayed it well on Page 1: “Why do we need to spend $21m for voter turnout in India? Wow, $21m! I guess they were trying to get somebody else elected,” Trump had said.
Playing Up BJP’s Allegation
The papers had also played up the Bharatiya Janata Party allegation that the Congress had used external influence in the country’s electoral process. DH led the February 21 edition with the headline screaming ‘They were trying to get ‘somebody else elected’: Trump’. The copy clarified that “they” meant the Joe Biden administration.
TOI also carried Trump’s remark on Page 1 with the headline ‘Bid to get someone else elected: Trump on USAID’s $21m’. The paper spiced this up with the strapline ‘Hints Biden Was Backing Cong, Allies In LS Polls’, though the US President did not mention either the Congress or any other opposition party in his remarks.
What is far more worrisome is that the paper on February 23, carried alongside the watered down report about the “$21 going to my friend, Prime Minister Modi in India for voter turnout” one paragraph of an article where India’s foreign minister makes a feeble attempt to deflect blame. The complete article, which has been carried on Page 12, does not have any evidence of the reporter trying in any manner to question the minister’s claim despite the remark being made at a public event.
The Last Word
No publishing house or news channel or journalist should have such vastly different standards with regard to putting out news. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but this must be kept out of the news pages or news sections of TV channels. These pages must carry news and not opinion or even analyses, which are best left to pages clearly earmarked as such. All of us are entitled to and most of us will have our views about politics, religion, culture, sport and most things under the sun. However, it is essential that we keep our biases out of our work. Only when we do that can we even start on the path of regaining the trust of the people and also our reputation as people who can be looked upon to tell others the truth.
The author is a senior journalist who writes on sociopolitical and socioeconomic issues.
