RJBM dispute: An appeal to the Indian media

Court Judgement on Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid (RJBM) dispute: What India expects from its media.

Almost all (99.9%) the inputs for this post are from "Oldtimer". Couldn't have put it better than this.

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News reports of the burning (real or alleged) of the Quran have an incendiary effect on Islamists. Recently, a fundamentalist pastor in the United States threatened to stage a Quran-burning event. His threat generated a lot of anxiety around the world. Obama administration swung into action to dissuade him from his declared action. In India, the Home Ministry urged caution to the media in reporting the incident, if it were to take place. Though the pastor eventually backed out, rumors of Quran-burning still circulated, leading to riots in Kashmir and Punjab and to the loss of lives.

The dangerous ramifications of pubilicizing a (real or alleged) Quran-burning incident were known in India even earlier than the latest fracas over the issue. In early March, 2001, VHP staged a protest in Delhi against the then on-going destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. Rumours surfaced that copies of the Quran were burnt at this meeting. VHP denied the rumors, but a photogrpah supposedly depciting the alleged burning rapidly spread on the internet. Trouble erupted after Friday prayers in Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Pune and Mumbai. Things took a turn for the worse in Kanpur, where a violent SIMI rally confronted the police, resulting in the death of more than a dozen people.

Cut to exactly one year later. It was early March, 2002, and parts of Gujarat were burning in the wake of the Godhra incident. People were being killed, buildings were being set on fire. In the midst of this mayhem, a prominent media personlity reporting the riots from Gujarat claimed in a dispatch that the burning of Quran was witnessed. It was a beautifully caligraphed Quran, the person added helpfully. When the whole homestead is burning, stuff in that home, like books, would burn too. What then was the point of specifically mentioning the burning of the Quran? This media person could not have been unaware of the riots in Kanpur a year ago. Why add fuel to fire, as if incidents of the rioting under way in Gujarat weren't inflammatory enough to cause trouble outside the state? It is instructive to recall, in this context, that the Gujarat administration, fearing the incendiary potential of the riots coverage, prohibited the broadcast of some TV channles in riot-prone districts.

Cut to 26/11. The ugliness of the drama on TV of the terrorist attacks is so fresh in mind that it needs no repetition. Jouranlists pumped up on adrenaline turned into loose canons. Hysteria, hyperventilation and callous disregard for the safety of the people trapped in the carnage were abundatly on display. Unwittingly, the coverage provided terrorist handlers in Pakistan with live visual feedback for their direction of operations. Obviously the media learned no lessons from its Kandahar and Gujarat misadventures.

These examples illustrate the fact that the ability of the media to regulate itself is under question. There seem to be no watchdog bodies honored or deferred to by the media; there are no institutionally-mandated guidelines on reporting sensitive issues; and it does not seem that most journalists are aware of any professional code of conduct, let alone honoring it. Open, unapologetic criticism of the media within the media is nowhere to be seen. Even as TV channels and publications fiercely compete with each other for market share, they however seem to be scrupulously observing the unwritten rule that they would not confront each other on the question of conduct of journalism. Journalists seem to fear that such criticism would undermine their desired image of being society's "eyes and ears" and do-gooders.

Where criticism from within is "managed" so effectively, will scrunity from outside be tolerated? Criticism of the media by outsiders is generally met with extreme defensiveness and denial. Media bodies are deployed not to monitor the conduct of their members but to counter this outsider criticism! In the wake of complaints in 2002 that the media's reporting of Gujarat riots was incendiary, an editors' committee led a "fact-finding" expedition, and declared predictably that the media was not guilty. If only institutions like the stock markets had the same privilege of having their own people as jurors, notwithstanding the conflict of interest involved!

To cut a long story short, at a time when there exist no guidelines to regulate media's reporting of sensitive issues, another sentitive issue is upon us. The Ayodhya title suit judgement is expected to be delivered by the Allahabad High Court on the 24th of September. The government is apprehensive that there could be trouble after the judgment is announced. How should media exercise restraint in its reporting of the judgement and its aftermath so that it will not worsen an environment already rife with portents for violent conflict? To answer this question here in this blog, we, the consumers of Indian media, propose a few do's and dont's for the media. We encourage readers to leave their own do's and dont's in the comments section, and we might add the good ones among them to the list below.

1. Do NOT hype only anti- or pro-judgement views
2. If there is violence, please stick to reporting just the facts.
3. IBN is already running a ticker - 3 days to go. 2 days to go (haven't watched other channels yet). This is exactly the kind of stuff we don't need.
4. Please avoid hyper-anchoring. Avoid the use of superlatives at will.
5. Stop throwing in references to 1993 blasts, 2002 riots etc.

Please feel free to add to this list. We will send this to all editors tomorrow, and see if anyone of them care to respond. The News Broadcaster Association already framed some "guidelines" which are not binding, but September 24th is another test of how much self-regulation the media is capable of.