Between journalism and propaganda

In mass communication courses, one of the first lessons to be imparted is that of journalists being the Fourth Estate, making up one of
the pillars of democracy. This gives one a feeling of the sense of responsibility that is vested in a journalist – of bringing across factual information to the public, who rely on this information to form an informed opinion. 

With the advent of social media, many “news channels” have become available to the public, which is often guilty of accepting information that comes through unverified sources without making any effort to fact-check before passing it on. With a cell phone in one’s hand, everyone can claim to be a news bearer, influencer, activist or even opinion maker.

In such circumstances, the role of a journalist becomes even more important. In recent times, we have seen journalists based in Palestine fulfilling their role with responsibility, to the extent that many have lost their lives while conveying the truth of what the Israeli forces, under Benjamin Netanyahu, are doing to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Many of us thought that we had seen the worst in sharing the surrealistic and tragic experience of Covid-19. Several began to harbour the belief that this was an experience that could bind us together as a common humanity, undergoing the same kind of suffering and fears, as the virus ravaged through the world, sparing neither rich nor poor.

But sadly, this was not to be, as we saw authoritarian regimes rising up across the world, using the powers that came to them after being voted in democratically and working to bulldoze and wreck all the institutions that could hold them accountable. The most dangerous among them seems to be Israel. Its leader, Netanyahu, and his coalition with a wafer-thin majority seem hell-bent on devastating the Gaza Strip. Every cruel action in his arsenal is being deployed to clear the place of Palestinians, including the worst that we are seeing today: starvation. International agencies have now officially declared Gaza to be a famine zone.

Netanyahu has now turned his chilling gaze on the journalists (television and photographers included), who have tried to thwart his efforts at gaslighting by exposing the truth of what is happening in the Gaza Strip to a horrified world, including countries which had always been allies of Israel. Many, like France, the UK, Australia and Germany, have been forced to express their support for Palestine.

Since October 7, 2023, 270 journalists and media workers have been killed while on duty, reporting in and about Gaza. Their sacrifice in telling the truth in the face of physical difficulties, including starvation and the loss of life, needs to be lauded and recorded for posterity. Al Jazeera journalists have been the bravest, as they have risked life and limb to bring the truth to the world, even as other big names in the world of television have faltered by underplaying the tragedies of the Palestinians.

 According to a Cost of Wars Project undertaken by Brown University, more journalists have been killed since the start of the war in Gaza than have had their lives snuffed out in the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the pounding of Afghanistan post-September 11. The Iraq invasion is exempted, as then the Allied Forces introduced a new form called embedded journalism, where journalists accompanied the forces and wrote what they were expected to write.

Watching television news in India today makes one wonder whether we are seeing another kind of embedded journalism, where the media has capitulated so much that it makes no bones about whose side it is on. For the sake of appearance, a particular political commentator or lawyer might be called in to reflect the non-governmental viewpoint, but the belligerent tone employed by the interviewer towards this participant makes one cringe. Recently in one such slanging match, it was disturbing to see the mike of the speaker turned off when he chose to question the interviewer. In the good old days of television journalism, one saw this happening only if the speaker got abusive towards the other speakers on the show.

The lack of coverage of the serious news of the day and diversionary reports also seem to point towards the fact that journalism, most of all television news, has degenerated to becoming a propaganda tool in the hand of the government and moved far from the role of being the fourth pillar of democracy.

(The author is an independent writer and keen observer of politics)