Hacks as lobbyists

Thinking aloud

The late Piloo Mody (a well-known Swatantra Party MP for the benefit of the very young) used to say that if somebody couldn't get any other job, he became a journalist. Then, as journalistic hackles rose, Piloo added his punch line. “If someone can’t even become a journalist, he goes into politics and is elected to the legislature!”

Looking around me today and reading about taped conversations, I wonder if there is much difference between the two professions. Both seem to be lobbyists in the anterooms of power -- political and corporate. Apparently this is what the public expects too.

 Vinod Mehta, editor of Outlook, gave an anthology of his columns the title ‘How close are you to the prime minister, Mr Editor?’ The prime minister might be replaced by Ratan Tata or Mukesh Ambani, but the principle remains the same. The journalist is not his own man but agent of some superior force. Old hacks like this writer for whom journalism is just writing have no place in this scheme of things.

There was always some overlapping between politics and journalism, but usually for a worthy reason. Indian journalism, as opposed to Anglo-Indian dailies like the ‘Times of India’ or ‘The Statesman,’ sought to present a nationalistic point of view.

 The people behind it were public personalities rather than professional journalists. Raja Rammohan Roy who started the first publications in indigenous languages -- the Miratul-Akhbar (Mirror of News) in Persian and a Bengali weekly, Sambad Kaumudi (Moon of Intelligence) -- in the 19th Century criticised, so far as was possible then, in the light of the Press Ordinance of 1823 which established censorship. 

Later, other locally owned and edited publications more overtly supported the Swarajist cause. An apocryphal story about the late Tushar Kanti Ghosh, owner and editor of the now defunct English-language Calcutta daily, Amrita Bazar Patrika, made the point jocularly. Asked why his paper’s English was so execrable, Ghosh allegedly replied without batting an eyelid that the British were his enemies and since he could not harm them in any other way, he was doing his best to destroy their language.

Sadly, the proprietors -- they can’t be left out of any discussion of the media's independence -- and journalists who have brought journalism into disrepute cannot claim exoneration even on such farcical grounds.

A New York Times reporter wrote that nothing corrupted more than Henry Kissinger calling you by your first name. Presumably, a media man would be over the moon if he were allowed to call Kissinger ‘Henry.’ Both are especially applicable in India’s stratified society where the use of first names indicates far greater intimacy than in the west and where journalism is not a traditionally prestigious or well-paid profession.

Tags meaningless

I have often argued that the tag ‘political commentator’ to describe the author of an article is meaningless because every Indian is a political commentator. Only, some manage to get their bylines into print or, what matters more nowadays, their faces and voices into TV. The justification for the political links of those who succeed is the need for ‘sources.’

This is fallacious. Politicians make themselves available to whoever gives their views an airing. But journalists feel links with a party or its leader(s) give them added stature. There are also material benefits, especially when the links are corporate. Director’s quota shares and debentures are not unknown.

The government is partly responsible for distorting the concept of a free media. Subsidised housing, transport and foreign trips -- all tremendous temptations in a society of acute shortages -- are as effective as nomination to the Rajya Sabha, diplomatic assignments and honours.

When he turned down a Padma Shri, the late Nikhil Chakravartty, founder-editor of Mainstream, wrote blisteringly that for a journalist to accept a government decoration and still claim to be independent was like wearing a chastity belt in a brothel.

Curiously, Delhi journalists are in a state of denial about this abuse, as I discovered during a recent seminar. We were discussing coverage of China, and the colleague who roundly accused India of anti-China propaganda, brandishing the printed evidence distributed by China’s embassy and consulates, would not concede that journalists play the government’s game for their own reasons. Slaves often trumpet their freedom most loudly.

Let me add that no media institution and no media worker is ever absolutely free. Journalists have their predilections. TV anchors run amok under the delusion they are the sole custodians of national honour. Proprietors are bound by ambition and the balance sheet. Governments seek to control. So do the captains of industry. But self-respecting journalists can still find a safe path through these shoals.

My concern is not only what the print media says but that it says it so badly. The shrieking voice is not all, there’s a body as well. To take one example, it’s no accident that even the best English-language papers are so appallingly subbed. That says a great deal about not just the media but about Indian life as well: no one wants to labour behind the scenes, everyone craves the limelight.