Lok Sabha Speaker asking media to ‘avoid unpleasant truth’ is anti-national
Is the meaning of objectivity “avoiding unpleasant truth”? If Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan is to be believed, then that’s the case. Mahajan, at a function on Wednesday, June 21, said that journalists must maintain objectivity, use “beautiful language” and sometimes avoid telling the unpleasant truth.
In addition, Mahajan advised journalists to keep “national interest” in their minds while reporting, though she didn’t quite explain what she meant by national interest. However, in keeping with the recent history and the illustrious three years of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, it’s not hard to decipher what exactly the Lok Sabha was implying in as many words.
Mahajan was a chief guest at the Devrishi Narad Jayanti Patrakar Samman Samaroh, organised by RSS-affiliated Indraprastha Vishwa Samvad Kendra. According to the Indian Express, the event saw others such as RSS saha-sampark pramukh Arun Kumar, defence analyst Maroof Raza, et al, address the gathering.
According to the report, Mahajan said journalists should emulate the mythical character Narad Muni. “But whatever is said should be said in beautiful language. A lot can be communicated to the government using such (polite) language. Satyam Bruyat Priyam Bruyat, Na Bruyat Apriyam Satyam (Tell the truth. Tell nice things. Do not tell unpleasant truth) — this is also required sometimes.”
Mahajan added, “When an aeroplane hit the twin towers (9/11 attacks), it must have sent shockwaves. But the media keeps showing the aircraft hitting the towers repeatedly.” On Jammu and Kashmir, she said, “After 1947, there have been so many wars. But they have not cumulatively killed as many soldiers as have died in Jammu and Kashmir. Who will show this? The journalists."
It’s abundantly evident that what Sumitra Mahajan is prescribing is a form of journalism that should better be dubbed “churnalism”, or churning out government propaganda, or pro-regime pieces, without uncovering what she calls the “unpleasant truth”.
This is in keeping with a recently launched TV channel that has controversial ownership patterns and has direct conflict of interest in terms of reportage, telling its HR team to hire journalists along the editorial line of “Pro-Army, Pro-nationalism”, whether or not there’s adherence to truth.
It seems truth is a casualty, or at least not the top priority, when it comes to the brand of journalism that Mahajan is advocating, and what this government has been expecting the media to do. An embarrassing example of this is the recent “Letter to the Editor” of the New York Times from a CBI spokesperson, which took the Times to task for its editorial “India’s Battered Free Press”, on the NDTV raids.
In addition, the assault on press freedom continues unabated, even though the media is more divided than ever, some bending over backwards to please the powers that be, while a few others are striving on bravely, facing humiliation, social media troll army and intimidation on a daily basis for the stories they publish and the opinions they put forth.
But as many have pointed out, telling media to toe the government line imperils the very foundations of democracy itself. As senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai told in a chat with DailyO, we must become journalists again, and like the American press at the moment, “rediscover our soul”, and become adversarial, interrogatory in spirit like we should be.
Why should any member of the government or a public office bearer give a memo to the media on how to do its job? Not only is this unethical, it spells doom for the sanctity of both the government and the press, which in India is undergoing structural shifts, increasingly sacrificing integrity and interrogatory spirit at the altar of a flattened content.
A columnist on DailyO has described the media’s fascination with sickening turn of events minus any ethical weight of full-scale condemnation and negating the impact of a strong editorial by turning everything to be outraged about, as if in a constant whirr of background noise, as “cringe pop”.
The responsibility of the media and indeed assorted members of the press is drop this cringe pop culture and return to its roots of ethical sound, questioning spirit of journalism at its rawest and freshest.
In turn, we see ministers and bureaucrats and public office bearers calling us “presstitutes”, slurring both the sex worker and the press en bloc. We see constant threats, journalists being killed in heartlands, abused on social media and much more. Witch-hunts online and offline are becoming routine, so much so that many are calling this an “undeclared Emergency”.
It’s ironic because Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the Ramnath Goenka Awards ceremony in 2016, had asked the press to report freely and without fear. Isn’t Sumitra Mahajan’s advice that journalists sugarcoat their reports and editorials in national interest against what the PM himself recommended?
We need to revisit what Raj Kamal Jha, editor of the Indian Express, said at the very same award function. He said: “Criticism from the government is a badge of honour for journalists.”
Is the Lok Sabha Speaker listening?