Raju Korti
Many of my colleagues who have banged their heads in this thankless profession for decades like I have done; are going to pan me for this but truth be told. Unvarnished and unadulterated truth though some of them will sweat themselves dry on the semantics of what is truth. More so when truth gets meshed in a tangle of lies, half lies and half truth.
I went into Journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get as close to the world as possible. Its not for me to sit on judgement on how much of that has been achieved but being ingrained that objective journalism and opinion columns are about as similar as Bible and Playboy magazine, I am condemned to hear a journalist being dubbed as a presstitute in the social media.
When I entered the profession sometime in 1979, it was not as if the profession wasn't without its taints but not as rabid as it is today. There was still a semblance of professional ethic. As rookies we were all led and guided by men of mettle. Seniors would routinely throw shoddily written reports into the dustbin unlike today where even as rewritten press handout get a byline. I still recall the expression of my first news editor when I felt that an interview I had done deserved a byline. He looked at me as if I had committed a sacrilege. "Byline aur isko?" he retorted like the heroine of a Hindi film telling the villain "Shaadi aur tum se?" As it happened with most of us, my first byline came well after three years and that too as if my boss was doing me a great favour. We all thought that getting a byline was as good as conquering Mount Everest. Most of us youngsters at that time didn't realize that this was the foundational regimen to make us do better and better.
I am saying this because most newspapers even then had their own affiliations and leanings. They were and are still owned by businessmen and politicians as mouthpieces. Vested interests were restricted to mostly the owners while the journalists did their bidding not as blatantly as it obtains today. But professional ethics always take a back seat when commercialisation takes over. Today, journalists are no longer pawns in the hands of unscrupulous owners running their media shops, they have become power brokers unto themselves. The advent of TV news channels in the eighties and their proliferation in the nineties changed all that and took away whatever piety was left in it. Faced with stiff competition and a question mark hanging over their survival, the newspapers too started falling into line. One media house criticising another was by and large alien and unethical but it is common these days to see newspapers and channels taking swipes at each other out of professional rivalry.
Until the late eighties, jobs in journalism weren't hard to come by. A nominal interview clinched the aspirant a job and although rewards were a pittance, people stuck around for the satisfaction of it. It was something you went to college for. Many came and polished their skills to become excellent writers. From that point it has come to a stage where the job avenues are many and returns far exceed the professional's calibre. On the other hand, journalism colleges are producing graduates like a factory. Little wonder many end up as "content writers" with neither content nor writing. Not everyone realizes that to write a really good piece of journalism can be intellectually demanding.
As a neophyte I remember having been asked to cover a meet-the-press and I was confused like hell how it differed from a press conference. My seniors told me that you could grill people holding the press conference but at a meet-the-press, you must treat the person as guest and therefore no awkward questions were to be asked. Interestingly, even the journalist unions endorsed this view. Compare this with what you see on the TV channels day in and day out. People, most of the times politicians and bureaucrats, are "invited" to the studios only to be made to look like first class idiots and treated with disdain. Worse still, the invitees take all this in their stride because they still have to depend on the media to get their point across. The TV anchors, often judgemental and opinionated, have a verdict even before the hearing has begun. These are the know alls either goofing up on "facts" or cooking them up to sex up their stories. Media houses are brazenly run like shops with no pretensions of any serious journalism. Journalists have outdone owners in this exercise. Opinions have made short work of information and people are none the wiser as "facts" vary from one media house to another. Attempts to regulate the media have been met with stiff resistance. Sad as it is when the media on its own should be fair and balanced. What do you do when newspaper pages from first to last read like editorial pages? The critical importance of honest journalism -- though agreed that hundred per cent objectivity is humanly impossible -- needs to be dispassionately debated but who will bell the cat(s)?
Its a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as Journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy and complacence and generally stuck in stagnant mediocrity. Journalism as a recipe has now an added ingredient called arrogance. Broadcast licences are given to political philosophies and personal opinions instead of people. It has reached a stage where people -- and in most cases journalists themselves -- think there is no difference between news and entertainment. The more celebrity-driven it is, the better. Lack of information, misinformation, disinformation and a general contempt for truth have killed the very spirit of the profession. In the era of TRPs, ratings don't last, good journalism does. Good journalism was happening even when there was no Twitter. The social media has become a breeding ground for people who masquerade as writers throwing up bile through personal prejudices. There is less truth in journalism than fiction even though it is famously said that journalism is literature in hurry. I have deliberately avoided giving examples because we all know them. The social media is doing that job perfectly.
The tragedy is journalists have not made peace with the fact that the world is inured to the power of journalism which at best only serves to outrage people. Money, eyeballs and software brands don't have much shelf life. Journalism has taken all hues except black and white.
We watch and carry on.
Many of my colleagues who have banged their heads in this thankless profession for decades like I have done; are going to pan me for this but truth be told. Unvarnished and unadulterated truth though some of them will sweat themselves dry on the semantics of what is truth. More so when truth gets meshed in a tangle of lies, half lies and half truth.
I went into Journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get as close to the world as possible. Its not for me to sit on judgement on how much of that has been achieved but being ingrained that objective journalism and opinion columns are about as similar as Bible and Playboy magazine, I am condemned to hear a journalist being dubbed as a presstitute in the social media.
When I entered the profession sometime in 1979, it was not as if the profession wasn't without its taints but not as rabid as it is today. There was still a semblance of professional ethic. As rookies we were all led and guided by men of mettle. Seniors would routinely throw shoddily written reports into the dustbin unlike today where even as rewritten press handout get a byline. I still recall the expression of my first news editor when I felt that an interview I had done deserved a byline. He looked at me as if I had committed a sacrilege. "Byline aur isko?" he retorted like the heroine of a Hindi film telling the villain "Shaadi aur tum se?" As it happened with most of us, my first byline came well after three years and that too as if my boss was doing me a great favour. We all thought that getting a byline was as good as conquering Mount Everest. Most of us youngsters at that time didn't realize that this was the foundational regimen to make us do better and better.
I am saying this because most newspapers even then had their own affiliations and leanings. They were and are still owned by businessmen and politicians as mouthpieces. Vested interests were restricted to mostly the owners while the journalists did their bidding not as blatantly as it obtains today. But professional ethics always take a back seat when commercialisation takes over. Today, journalists are no longer pawns in the hands of unscrupulous owners running their media shops, they have become power brokers unto themselves. The advent of TV news channels in the eighties and their proliferation in the nineties changed all that and took away whatever piety was left in it. Faced with stiff competition and a question mark hanging over their survival, the newspapers too started falling into line. One media house criticising another was by and large alien and unethical but it is common these days to see newspapers and channels taking swipes at each other out of professional rivalry.
Until the late eighties, jobs in journalism weren't hard to come by. A nominal interview clinched the aspirant a job and although rewards were a pittance, people stuck around for the satisfaction of it. It was something you went to college for. Many came and polished their skills to become excellent writers. From that point it has come to a stage where the job avenues are many and returns far exceed the professional's calibre. On the other hand, journalism colleges are producing graduates like a factory. Little wonder many end up as "content writers" with neither content nor writing. Not everyone realizes that to write a really good piece of journalism can be intellectually demanding.
As a neophyte I remember having been asked to cover a meet-the-press and I was confused like hell how it differed from a press conference. My seniors told me that you could grill people holding the press conference but at a meet-the-press, you must treat the person as guest and therefore no awkward questions were to be asked. Interestingly, even the journalist unions endorsed this view. Compare this with what you see on the TV channels day in and day out. People, most of the times politicians and bureaucrats, are "invited" to the studios only to be made to look like first class idiots and treated with disdain. Worse still, the invitees take all this in their stride because they still have to depend on the media to get their point across. The TV anchors, often judgemental and opinionated, have a verdict even before the hearing has begun. These are the know alls either goofing up on "facts" or cooking them up to sex up their stories. Media houses are brazenly run like shops with no pretensions of any serious journalism. Journalists have outdone owners in this exercise. Opinions have made short work of information and people are none the wiser as "facts" vary from one media house to another. Attempts to regulate the media have been met with stiff resistance. Sad as it is when the media on its own should be fair and balanced. What do you do when newspaper pages from first to last read like editorial pages? The critical importance of honest journalism -- though agreed that hundred per cent objectivity is humanly impossible -- needs to be dispassionately debated but who will bell the cat(s)?
Its a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as Journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy and complacence and generally stuck in stagnant mediocrity. Journalism as a recipe has now an added ingredient called arrogance. Broadcast licences are given to political philosophies and personal opinions instead of people. It has reached a stage where people -- and in most cases journalists themselves -- think there is no difference between news and entertainment. The more celebrity-driven it is, the better. Lack of information, misinformation, disinformation and a general contempt for truth have killed the very spirit of the profession. In the era of TRPs, ratings don't last, good journalism does. Good journalism was happening even when there was no Twitter. The social media has become a breeding ground for people who masquerade as writers throwing up bile through personal prejudices. There is less truth in journalism than fiction even though it is famously said that journalism is literature in hurry. I have deliberately avoided giving examples because we all know them. The social media is doing that job perfectly.
The tragedy is journalists have not made peace with the fact that the world is inured to the power of journalism which at best only serves to outrage people. Money, eyeballs and software brands don't have much shelf life. Journalism has taken all hues except black and white.
We watch and carry on.
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