We are pulling our hair in frustration about the decline in standards of reporting writes a senior journalist ! Calling a spade a spade is Journalism?
AMITABH SRIVASTAVA
Only a few days back Alok Ojha, an old friend who has worked in at least a dozen top media organisations and me were discussing the latest trends in media reporting.
We remembered how there was a certain unwritten code of conduct while reporting sensitive issues like communal riots where the names of the communities involved in the riots was avoided.
Similarly, the faces of the accused caught for a petty to a heinous crime were not to be shown because there was something called ‘Identification Parade.’
All this was taught in journalism classes as measures to avoid fraying of tempers and further aggravation of the situation.
And here we were pulling our hair in frustration about the decline in standards of reporting in the country.All norms had been thrown in the dustbin because justice was being delivered by extra judicial forces backed by elected states and the religion of the culprits was openly flaunted like the head of victims displayed by the Taliban.
But when I read this report just now in the New York Times which is the second lead, questions about the ethics and purpose of journalism once again started disturbing.
The NYT has never been been coy in calling its own criminals Black and White so it does not come as a surprise when it writes “Atiq Ahmed, a Muslim who was serving a life sentence.”
For them calling a spade a spade is their duty and maintaining law and order is the duty of the state.
How many of us would agree here because this is just the beginning of another long season of accusations and non-responsive state response.
“A killing on live TV in India
A notorious mobster-politician and his brother in India were killed on live television on Saturday, renewing alarm about the country’s slide toward extrajudicial violence.
Atiq Ahmed, a Muslim who was serving a life sentence, and his brother were fatally shot at close range, while the two were being taken by the police to the hospital for what had been described as a routine checkup.
Three assailants — one of whom extended his arm in front of an officer’s face to put a gun to Ahmed’s head — rained several rounds of bullets into the two men. Officers tackled the assailants, and as they were being taken away, they shouted “Jai Shri Ram,” or hail to the Hindu lord Ram. Afterward, two state ministers described the murders of the two men as akin to divine justice.
(New York Times)
