What's news?

The headline of a story on the acquittal of four alleged Naxals in a daily broadsheet read '4 Naxals acquitted'. The report contradicted itself if these people were acquitted, how can you call them Naxals in the headline? This clearly shows the prejudices that exist in the minds of 'objective' journalists.

The media has become a judiciary of sorts and we have started pronouncing our own judgments based on the little proof that we have. It makes me wonder who gave us this right. A senior colleague always told me that we do not need to be stenographers, taking down copious notes of what the police officers tell us and then printing them verbatim. But that is what we tend to do if the police labels someone a terrorist, we call him the same, without waiting for the court judgment.

In the age of quickie journalism, we forget the basics and canons of this respected field.

For the last few weeks, after Operation Green Hunt was announced by the state against the Maoists, there were many news channels and papers that had camped in Naxal-affected areas, the names of which many journalists had never even heard before. We read, saw and heard the news of how the security forces were fighting the Naxals. But, ironically, the other side of the story was hardly ever presented. There was no Naxal speaking. I know it is very difficult to locate them, but isn't talking to them our job, isn't that journalism?
Broken news has been renamed breaking news and everybody enjoys broadcasting it and writing it. Forget Naxals, there wasn't even a villager or adivasi quoted. Strangely, the home minister, whose ministry supposedly launched the 'battle' denied that there was any Operation Green Hunt and this term was coined by the media.u00a0

During the Bombay 72u00b0 East drug case last year, camera persons were running behind the teenagers when they were produced before the court, tugging at their masks so that they could shoot the faces of the alleged drug abusers. There are many innocent lives that we destroy because we want sensational news. During the coverage of the Headley case, I remember a TV journalist u2014 who had no quotes, no name,u00a0 absolutely nothing u2014 giving a half-hour piece-to-camera on the basis of 'sources'. The source was an SMS sent to him by another journalist that clearly read, 'please confirm'. But the journalist forgot to confirm, or rather didn't want to, and the channel played it up as breaking news.u00a0u00a0

In the age of quickie journalism, we forget the basics and canons of this respected field. Let's hope the actual journalists are not riding into the sunset.