I am just a journalist. That's it!

The operative word is "bias".

Raju Korti
Having banged my head in the thankless profession of Journalism for almost 35 years I can assure you that many of my ilk consider themselves as superior than thou in their infinite wisdom. That overwhelming feeling never overtook me because I was too inconsequential and much too detached to take sides as is the wont of my professional colleagues. As a struggling rookie I realized pretty soon that there is more enjoyment that comes from being unattached and balanced. In any case I didn't have the gall to be slanted in my writing though I have my personal views.
The immediate provocation for writing this blog is my fellow journalist and friend Mayank Chhaya who I have been reading more than I do myself. In his blog "Of being abused and praised as a journalist" he says how amused he is when people attach motives to his views and writings. Having   gone through this situation any number of times before, I can relate to his blog.
Writes Mayank: "As an independent and politically detached journalist for 33 years, I have been frequently called names. Somehow readers think name-calling is an effective substitute for intelligence and substance. My most intense reaction to name-calling is very mild amusement for about three seconds. I never engage the abusers because it is futile to do so. More often than not they come from a place of deep intellectual dysfunction. They are also on an incompatible level of literacy.
During the pre-internet days, when the distance between the journalist and the reader was fairly wide and often unbridgeable, name-calling existed but not with the kind of crass ferocity that you encounter these days. The internet, propelled by social media, has made abuse and invective convenient, cheap and instant."
I can summon all my professional integrity and vouch that I have never subscribed to any particular "...ism" or "...sophy." It is just not me to be bogged down with ideological baggage that is politically driven or motivated. But try hard as I might, it is virtually impossible to shrug naysayers who will impute motives to whatever you write. Time was when I took such abusers to heart. These days I take them as "hits" much like TV channels who rate themselves on TRPs. It is one great way to retain your sanity or whatever little is left of it.
I have been called a Leftist, Rightist and a Centrist from time to time. There have been times when I wonder whether I have been a "liberal" or "intolerant" whatever those terms mean. I once made a fleeting remark about Modi cutting bureaucrats to size. The knives were out in no time. I became a saffronist and a right winger out to promote BJP agenda. I had made an off the cuff remark about how Sonia Gandhi and Bal Thackeray made for an interesting comparison given that both had shunned political posts. My learned friends on Facebook labeled me as a "Khangressi" and a Congress stooge. The only consolation I could draw from the epithets I received was I had ben catapulted into the league of Kumar Ketkars.
A few years before while dwelling on the Crimean crisis, I attempted an objective study of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a matter of 30 minutes I was an "avowed Commie" in the eyes of the same people who saw the saffron in me. To cut the long story short, they will take swipes at you anyhow -- Right, Left and Centre.
Many of my pro-Kejriwal friends were thrilled to pieces when I wrote that the AAP was welcome phenomenon in the vitiated political scenario that obtains in the country. They clammed all ends up when I called him a "fascist buffoon" after his experiments with Delhi. I have been a "liberal" and "conservative" every now and then that makes me believe that I must be a versatile man of many colors and parts.
Yet, I have managed to have more than a thousand friends in my fold. I am waiting for the day when some "liberal" or "conservative" will actually reward me by unfriending and/or blocking me.
Sometime back, for sheer fun, I wrote : "When someone claims to be a "liberal" or a "conservative", rest assured it is a load of bunkum. They are just masks that fall off at the drop of a hat. We are all "liberals and conservatives" to the extent it suits us." I was slammed by Liberals and Conservatives alike.
Any more name calling? More "hits" are welcome.