Report, don’t comment. Be fair and objective and above all, tell the truth.
These basic tenets of journalism were driven into the heads of every budding newsman by worried editors who prided on their reputation.
But those ideals and ethics are now gone – dead and buried forever.
Welcome to the new age of journalism – where money is king and ethics only a much avoided word in the dictionary. But what is scary today is not what we read or listen, but what we are made to read and listen. There is a forceful suggestion being made to us every day on what the media wants us to know, without a hint of balance in the report.
For example, every day the media fills us up with what the government does, consigning any protest against it to a few lines or ignoring it altogether.
They wax lyrical about some politicians making them out to be only next to God.
A reputed economic daily recently carried six pictures of a newly-elected chief minister on facing pages! And most old coots of journalism will affirm that you must carry only one picture of a person in facing pages or for that matter the entire newspaper.
It has always been a matter of policy for some newspapers and television channels to align themselves with whoever holds the power in the country. But a proper balance was always struck and dissent was never ignored.
Today, one can barely get two or three who do not toe the government line.
There is always a case of a little favour there or a helping hand somewhere else in return.
If you have money or power or both, it is easy to impose your views through the media now than ever before. You can buy your space, promote your views and get prominence in coverage.
But what is frightening today is that the government seems indirectly controlling most media houses.
With print media on its death throes and television channels elbowing each other in the media space, nobody wants to upset the applecart.
There may come a time when the state will take full control of the media and we may become robots, nodding and obeying them.
Styles, ways of writing or reporting change with the times. We have to move with the times. One does not mind beautiful yuppies reporting from the ground, with no substance in the reports. Even you or I could say those things from the comfort of an armchair. But that’s harmless.But selling your souls to the devil is the final nail in the coffin.
So the question is – will ethical journalism ever make a comeback after getting firmly entrenched in the vicious world of greed?
Probably Nobel winner Bob Dylan got it right – “The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind”.
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#Views expressed in this column are the authors and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.
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