Behind the Breaking news.

The prominence of media in the pseudo-democratic society like India is not under-rated, with most number of newspapers and news channels in several languages frantic on a pursuit to let the people know of the latest hot news. Media, being the fourth estate of a nation, has played its part for keeping up that little bit of democracy it could. At the same time it is challenged by the upper hand of the politics waging secret war against the true journalism. One of the great things that happened in the recent years must be the Rights to Information act rolled out by UPA I. Though now they are realizing the sting of its bite, and is working towards restricting its range, it brought the public closer to the wynds of journalism. Interestingly Journalism is getting crony, while the new age whistle blowers and RTE activists try to fill that gap, often leading into their persecution and even assassination, as we witnessed in last few years. 

I happened to read a fabulous book called 'Breaking the big story: Great moments in Indian Journalism' where nine journalists accounts their moments of adventure, fear, joy and despair while bringing some of the news that shook the pillars of this country. Many of them have been forgotten by the public even when the aftershocks of the buried lies continue to the rock the belligerents’ bases even today. Ever after the advent of 24x7 channels, the public have been mislead to believe that Prannoy Roy, Barkha dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai  and many other figures scurrying over the already reported news with their verbal circus constitute the fraternity of Journalists. And the public seldom delve beyond those smokescreens to get to know the actual reporters and the effort and pain they have put to bring the scams, scandals, truths and lies through grass root level reporting. This book doesn't simply stagnate at the stories as such, but also reveals the adventurous and dangerous culture of journalism.

The book is edited by the eminent media analyst and statesman B.G.Verghese. He gives the introduction to the book passing through the prominance of media in the democratic society like India and how the democracy itself got strengthened and at the same time challenged by the secret war between the true journalism and politics. As he emphasised the need to report a news from all the sides as opposed to the one-sided reporting which he believes is caused by the 24 hour news broadcast trend that is depriving the journalists the liberty to report the right news. While he pointed out the relevence of Rights to Information act passed by the UPA govt as landmark in terms of making the system transparent for the public and at the same time, ironically though, he was emphasizing on certain restrictions in RTE. He treats it diplomatically by appreciating the impact of RTE and at the same time mildly raising the apprehensions of information leak. I couldn't agree with that part though, as any legislation brought towards restrictions in RTE would end up eating the whole thing up, unless judiciary intervenes, which will be an unnecessarily laborious task in India.

The stories covered are - Bhopal MIC tragedy by Raajkumar Keswani, The starvation deaths of Kashipur by Sampad Mahapatra, the Nelli massacre by Sanjoy Hazarika, Tamil genocide in SL by Anita Pratap, the post militant political Kashmir by Muzamil Jaleel, match-fixing scandal in Cricket by Pradeep Magazine, Bofors scandal by Chitra Subramaniam, Tehelka sting operation by Tarun Tejpal and finally on the Gujarat communal violence by Teesta Setalvad. The authors of each chapters tells it from the beginning of their involvement, how they got the tip, ravelled each piece of jigsaw, brought the story into public, were accepted by public, hunted and harassed down by the wielders of power and their lives impacted by these work.

Book starts with the account of Raajkumar keswani, a small time reporter from Bhopal who had been reporting about the potential danger of the union carbide plant in the village ever since it was installed. Even before the final disaster, he accounts, there had been small leakages and minor industrial disasters that had claimed the lives of many workers. Despite of the safety and standards audit showing dismal performance by the company, the government never bothered to investigate the news reports he published. Until the disaster struck, none of the news papers, except Indian express in a single occasion, bothered to throw some light on it. I wonder how many such news reports are getting overlooked or purposefully downplayed in this country, waiting for the tragedy to happen. Jaitapur Nuclear plant, Mullaperiyar dam, how many more? The massacre at Nelli was no different. The illegal immigration from Bangladesh, and gross social unrest that were perpetually downplayed by the government and equally ignored by national media ultimately culminated in a gruesome massacre of Bangladeshi immigrants in Nelli village in Assam.

Chitra Subramaniam's and Anita Pratap's accounts had many similarities; they are the 2 women who brought much trouble to Rajiv Gandhi. One in the form of Bofors scandal whiles the other on the Tamil massacre and about subsequent involvements of IPKF into this trouble.  She being one of the few journalists who had been into the war front news correspondence early in the times of print and radio journalism, tells about her rub-off with the defence and intelligence officials despite whose hurdles she was able to bring eye-witness accounts of civil war in Srilanka, which in fact boosted the morale of the Army. When the passion of journalism creeps into the blood it eclipses everything, even the family, says Chitra subramanian. But as all the fights against a powerful system are destined, both of them had to finally quit although she pursued it even after The Hindu took the story off its shelf following political pressure. And after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, to their dismay, the investigation went into total oblivion.

In a civil society which is not transparent yet, I personally believe that, the people in power should never be given any benefit of doubt. Looking the balance of power, there is hardly any place in this country where we can say that, here people are in power and not politicians. In such a place, a good journalist would be the one who is a thorn in the velvet cushion of the powerful. The big news is big only because it shakes the establishments of power. Such a government having sold itself off to the private parties tries to play off a mean game against a village that is reluctant to give way to a mine in Orissa. When several villagers in Kashipur died, the village officials decided to write it off as food poisoning, which was in fact a food poisoning induced by un-availability of food. Sampad Mahapatra got involved in the investigations that told a simple fact that, in the time of dire situations humans try to find something to hang on. And these villagers, having been denied their rightful share of ration, had been pushed to a state where they had to consume contaminated dried mango kernels and wild mushroom. The government still stands by their claim that it was a mere food poisoning, and consuming mango kernels was their tradition.

The thin line between an investigator and reporter, between activist and reporter is tested in many such cases. I cannot deny that even when I am typing this, there is someone scheming about some crime of wide social consequences. Plenty of things happening around, often under our noses or about something which is outright guessable, like the illegal mining, encroachments, land mafias, defence lobbying. A true investigative reporter should be able smell those trouble, says Chitra, which was what she had been looking out in the multimillion deal that was being signed between the Swedish arms giant Bofors and GOI. It is the same sixth senses that lead Tarun Tejpal to initiate his Operation west-end that trapped money hungry politicians and army officers in sting operation. Pradeep Magazine's scoop came out through a casual talk with a bookie in West Indies which prompted him to disguise himself as someone close to the cricketers. His adventure ended up in exposing one of the biggest match fixing scandals that rocked the trust of millions on the game of cricket.

Jaleel's account on Kashmir talks about how, as a journalist, his credibility was tested in Kashmir as caught between devil and deep sea. If a journalist writes about atrocities of Kashmiri militancy he would be declared as pro-GOI and would end up becoming a target for separatists, whereas if he writes about army atrocities the GOI would declare him as pro-separatist and could end up in censoring his articles. Being a territory of where a sane journalist would never want to stay, he managed to survive and had been successful in gaining access to the areas which had been barred for other journalists. He accounts for how many journalists have been targeted in Kashmir, as he says Army takes it away in day time and militants takes it away at night. He isn't sure how long he can survive in a place of least press freedom and high volatility without losing the trust of either side.

Beyond the stories, it also tells how these impacted them personally. Anita pratap talks about how RAW agents were advised to threaten her by kidnapping her son, if she did not reveal the names of her sources of leaked news.  Chitra Subramaniam speaks of how terrified her husband and in-laws was when she was making calls to the sting agents in sweden, on Bofors issue, two days after the delivery of her first child, from the hospital bed! And Tarun Tejpal recounts the tense moments of Samuel Mathews and Anirudh Bahl and their laborious editing phase and the period of dark clouds when Tehelka was destroyed from the arena. Teesta Setlevad's account on post-godhra riot had the flavour of human rights activism more than journalism. Her’s were the account of how a state deliberately tried all it could to let the rioters have a carnage for days. The reluctant hospitals, who denied treatment to wounded, unbothered police force and the ordeals in bringing the guilty in front of justice, are accounted in the final chapters.  

Often the journalism has come under the scanner of being biased, this stigma still holds true in all the major media houses. They often end up as mere mouthpieces of either the political parties or corporate. Hence the biggest challenge a journalist face would be to get the facts sorted out from all the parties. Taking the case of the Maoists insurgency or the Kashmir issue, only a few media did cover the news from all perspectives. The new age of 24x7 news channels has failed in this case, mainly because of the competition to report something before the rival channel. They invariably end up with the most easily accessible sources, like the police or army or political spokespersons for news, editors then sensationalize it and that comes as breaking news they are not patient enough to get the complete picture leading to bias in the report, which they hide skilfully with their diplomatic statements. Another problem with the 24x7 channels is that the shelf-life of a news item is very less. News of importance loses its temper after few days or until another breaking news surfaces. Ultimately this TRP hunter ends up more as a bane rather than becoming a boon! So, while the TRP hunters are on their spree, all we can do is to trust those unknown faces that are on prowl at the backyards of the society to unveil the veiled.