The last refuge.....

In the recent past, accountability journalism has become the new buzzword both in the newspapers and on TV. Who will judge the judges, is the question posed often by these crusading journalists, as they seek for the truth on behalf, they say, of the masses. Rarely, however, does anyone ever ask who will evaluate and judge the integrity of these journalists posing as your representatives. Should they not be held to the same standard of integrity and honesty that they seek to impose on others ? Or should their lapses be swept under the rug and all their errors be forgiven under the rubric of all is fair since they personify " freedom of the press".

The Mumbai massacre brought this issue to light in a particularly direct way. The coverage of the murders and the commando rescue operations during the three days of November, with a number of competing cable new outlets in the fray, led to dangerous leaks, hindering effective respones and possibly endangering innocent lives. They may have been born of excess zeal and lack of professionalism on the part of the young untrained journalist but which nevertheless contributed to an atmosphere of panic. In some cases this zeal certainly imperiled the lives of hostages held in the two hotels during the operation. It was widely acknowledged that the terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan were monitoring our TV channels and calibrating their depredations and attacks in going after specific targets trapped as hostages based on these reports. Yet even after the event was over, there was little protest of these excesses and lapses in judgment from the other senior journalists or editors. No columns, to my knowledge, were written by any of our pontificating pundits exploring the limits of freedom of press versus the rights of innocent bystanders who could become victims of this injudicious reporting. When asked whether the journalists had a duty to take into account the possible results of their work on endangering the lives of others, many journalists absolved their more aggressive fellow journalists talking of excess zeal born of competition and mumbling about the publics right to information. Others admitted the complete lack of professionalism on the part of both the field journalists and their editors/owners but refused to be quoted on record. It seemed as if all the journalists closed ranks as a fraterinity in refusing to condemn these practices just as doctors do after a botched fatal operation.

A particularly eggrecious example was of a senior journalist from a prominent TV cable network. Her coverage of the Mumbai massacre certainly imperiled lives -- including ours. My wife and I were held hostage in the Trident hotel during this November attack. After the initial flurry of killings in the hotel, we were informed on our cellphone that NSG commandos were planning a rescue operation. But as we turned on the TV, we found this senior journalist excitedly pointing out the launching post of the operations telling the entire world that the commandos would come from that " brown building next to the hotel". This, I understand, led to an exchange of bullets and may have led the commandos to alter their plans. That it was a serious error was clear because a few seconds after this excited utterance, all TV's in the Trident hotel were shut off. ( Of course the live coverage continued for those outside including the handlers and abettors of the terrorists !). Another cable channel announced that negotiations were under way to rescue a retired director of the oil company thereby inadvertently alerting the terrorists to the location of another possible hostage or attack. These were clearly dangerous statement which could have led to additional unneeded fatalities.

But no one from the journalist world condemned these lapse of judgment. Indeed citizen bloggers were the only ones who raised these issues and wanted to discuss the limits of press coverage during a critical operation when public lives were at stake. Instead one citizen blogger, who wrote a critical and mostly accurate account of these journalistic lapses, was pressurized by the TV channel and forced to recant with an apology. So did these defenders of the freedom of press muzzle citizen bloggers -- and there were over 3000 of them- and bury any attempt to bring to light the shoddy journalistic practices to repair them for the future.

The TV channel may have won this battle with that citizen blogger. But as for me, I will refuse to view this cable channel or its senior journalist from now on. This is my response - and should be yours- if we are to preserve the freedom of the press and some degree of integrity and accountability in our public life. No one , not even the journalists, can be absolved from this.