Fair and Balanced Reporting

Around three months ago media professional Misbah Quadri hit headlines when she claimed to be forcibly evicted out of her rented flat because she is a Muslim. In a country such as our, where all religions are considered equal, this was clearly an abomination. The news media needed to confront this very grave matter head on and so they did. There were major articles in The Hindu, India Today and The Times of India condemning this blatant act of religious discrimination. There were debates on TV, some of which had Miss Quadri as a participant. This came barely a week later after one Zeeshan Khan was allegedly denied job because he was Muslim, Khan was eventually offered a job and accepted employment at the Gautam Adani group bringing some closure to the mater. But that didn’t stop many secularists from being deeply distressed by these turn of events, some in the media even blamed the Modi government. In the end we all hoped that this blatant act of discrimination could be remedied and that Miss Quadri be allowed to live in peace without having to suffer any religious discrimination.

In a few days this report emerged where it was discovered that three flats in the building were occupied by Muslim tenants, none of whom had faced any kind of problems. Why Miss Quadri would be singled out for discrimination? There seemed to be no satisfactory answer. There was another report that included the broker’s complain to the police stating that the flat was given to three individuals for which there was a leave and license agreement registration and that Miss Quadri was staying at the in the flat without leave and license agreement registration posing as guest. Miss Quadri claimed that her name was to be added later in place of one of the tenants who was to move out. But another letter addressed to the owner of the flat states that all three tenants had wished to terminate the rent agreement over the flat and vacate the premise.  The matter was beginning to look murkier than initially thought. Finally this article appeared that states that the police found no evidence that to support Miss Quadri 'thrown out of flat I'm Muslim' claim. This was reported on 20^th August, it has been 5 days and a google new search shows that that so far only India Today has reported this aspect of the story. How many news organizations reported the allegations? Almost every.  How many will issue apologies and retractions? Perhaps none. How many will face consequences for reporting with certitude? Perhaps none.

A very basic lesson one learns in life is to never form an opinion based on only one side’s version of any event especially if there is a dispute involved. The same rule must be applied when you are a propagator of news i.e. you never report a story without verifying all sides of a story in interest of fairness and impartiality. When it pertains to matter of religion, extra caution must be exercised, since it can quite easily create disturbance with dire consequences. So what should be the penalty for those news organizations that carried Miss Quadri’s allegations with absolute certitude?

Beyond our country we have seen journalists of great reputation such as Judith Miller, Dan Rather and Brian Williams being compelled to quit their job for propagating inaccurate stories and falsehoods. When Fared Zakaria was found guilty of plagiarism, he was suspended from CNN and was compelled to apologize upon his return. We did see journalists resign after the Essar controversy. But we also see journalists involved in the Radia Tapes controversy continue to operate with impunity. We also almost no action taken when misreporting occurs.

So what solutions do we have in the event of a report being factually incorrect such that it disturbs the fabric of society or harms the reputation of a person? We have courts where the affected parties can file defamation suits but court cases take time and money, as the old adage goes, ‘justice delayed is justice denied’.  The only other solution to this seems to be regulation. An independent regulatory committee comprising of eminent journalists, educationists, litterateurs and lawyers should be setup with an intention to promote and uphold the highest professional standards of journalism. The job of this committee will be preventive i.e. the setting up of guidelines to minimize the possibility of misreporting, corrective i.e. issuing rules of immediate retraction and prescribing penalties and protective i.e. shield news organizations from being subjected to political pressure. It is important that the body be non-governmental, apolitical and most importantly empowered. There must be a mechanism for the average citizen to launch complains about erroneous reporting as well. This has be followed by a swift, fair, transparent and independent investigation where both sides of the argument are heard. There must to be penalties when guilt is established. In UK there are bodies such as the Independent Press Standards Organisation or OfCom who perform that very function with independence and effectiveness. We do have the Press Council of India but it needs to be empowered and its reach needs to be deepened into the organizations of news house.

Cynics will argue that the committee may be misused to muzzle free speech. That is why it has to comprised of people of eminence with strict guidelines and rules. With time, effort and discipline, the committee can be a great success and we can have a free but fair media that is required reports strictly based on undisputed facts and in the event of error is compelled to apologize and retract.

The other choice is to sit back and do nothing, with hope that things will get better thus risking the possibility of another serious case misreporting that may ruin a reputation or a life or even such grave consequences that inaction will as morally reprehensible as the misreporting itself.