A MOMENT OF TRUTH FOR MEDIA AND JOURNALISM - PUBLIC TRUST

The challenge for news media reporting the world has never been more difficult. In the age of globalisation, information is the lifeblood of democratic exchange but people struggle to understand what is going on amidst the explosive expansion of communication across the open information landscape.

Building trust has never been easy. There are always political and special interests groups -- governments and corporations in particular -- who try to manipulate media through government propaganda or corporate public relations. As a result, the public at large are routinely exposed to deceptive handling of the truth.

But in the digital age, the problem gets even worse. Today we have access to more information but much of it is even more unreliable. There is more scope for hatred, lies and malicious communication.

This comes at a time when everyone should be enjoying the power to speak their minds, freely and without restraint. The power of social networks and online media has grown everywhere. The audience is now part of the journalism business, both in the gathering of information and in its dissemination. This should be good news for democracy and free expression.

But the reality is that many of these new players have little sense of values and humanity. Often the information they spread is unreliable and malicious. The information field is open for bigotry, hatred and division as much as it is for greater understanding, depth and solidarity. And despite all the promise of the open internet, vulnerable and marginalised minorities remain largely invisible and victims of discrimination.

In traditional journalism media professionals struggle to maintain professionalism and their ethical base -- a respect for truth and accuracy, to do no harm, to be independent and to be accountable. But they do so in the face of turbulent change across the media industry which has led to a decline of investment in journalism and editorial work across the globe.

The result is falling standards, a loss of public trust and, in some corners, the growth of corrupt, partisan and unreliable journalism. Notions of public service value in journalism through public broadcasting have also come under sustained pressure.

All of this points to a moment of crisis for public interest journalism in which the major question is how to maintain ethical values and reliability and how to build public trust.

The Ethical Journalism Network is a new group aiming to find an answer by building partnership with the audience and by encouraging new levels of professional solidarity among media professionals themselves.

Media owners, editors, and journalists across all platforms of communications increasingly recognise they need to work together to tackle questions about regulation of media content and to promote responsibility in the use of information, not just inside journalism, but within the public at large.

Building partnership is about ending notions of media elitism and creating a new framework for solidarity that puts truth-telling, transparency and respect at the heart of media policy-making.

The need for such initiatives has never been greater. In recent days horrifying acts of terrorism and sectarian killings in Kenya, Pakistan, Iraq illustrate that people driven by ignorance, fear and irrational hatreds continue to pose threats to peace and democracy. Overcoming these threats will not be easy, but we make a good start when we restore public confidence in the craft of journalism and ethics in the use of information.

CRISIS OF QUALITY JOURNALISM ABOVE ALL MEDIA AGENDA

There’s plenty for journalists to worry about these days -- new business models, innovation and technology, press freedom, media regulation, labor relations and safety issues are all big issues for media professional groups. But people who work in this field have identified quality of content as their number one priority.

Mostly surveys are carried out in which, 85 percent of the reporters and collaborators, the issue of standards and reliability emerged at the top of a crowded list of concerns facing the media industry. The survey asked the supporters to identify their top four action points as the industry continues a process of transformation into a converged, digital environment. A clear majority pointed to worries over quality and reliability of content.

The importance of good governance, ethics and self-regulation is the top most important thing. In the last few years media have struggled to define new business models and to transform their newsrooms to meet new technological challenges while at the same time maintaining their focus on news safety and press freedom, two issues that have dominated the international media agenda over the past 20 years.

Most cover a range of concerns while others have a specific mandate. They were asked to identify the top four action areas from a list that included press freedom and safety; media development; media policy and regulation; business models; technology and innovation; quality of content; or another subject of their choosing.

The results placed worries over content ahead of press freedom and safety and was a box ticked twice as much as than questions of media policy, media development and the impact of technology.

Although the agenda remains generally the same, it’s clear that worries over reliability of content and quality of information have moved up the list. There’s a growing and shared concern about how to improve journalism and content across the spectrum of media services.

The results show that members are ready to collaborate on cross-industry initiatives to promote common ethical and governance standards.

All the members who responded agreed to work on three proposed industry-led studies including a survey on the value of self-regulation and inquiries into the problem of hate-speech in media and the crisis of paid journalism.

The survey also asked members what role the members can play in the coming years and they agreed that raising awareness of ethical and governance issues should be the most important objective as well as improving links between media professionals and media support groups at global level rather than at national level.

After a year or so of our work it is useful to take soundings among our members and it’s clear that the media community is more open to opportunities for working together to build credibility and standards. It’s a good sign and will help us develop an activity programmer that meets the needs of journalists and media.

New phase of Ethics - A step towards change!

Media revolution is transforming, fundamentally and irrevocably, slowly and gradually in the nature of journalism and its ethics. Publish is now in the hands of citizens, while the internet encourages new forms of journalism that are interactive and immediate.

Our media is a chaotic landscape evolving at great pace.  Professional journalists share the journalistic sphere with tweeters, bloggers, citizen journalists, and social media users.Every revolution, new possibilities emerge while old practices are threatened. Today is no exception. The economics of professional journalism struggles as audiences migrate online. Shrinkage of newsrooms creates concern for the future of journalism. 

Yet these fears also prompt experiments in journalism, such as non-profit centers of investigative journalism.

The main question which arises is to what extent existing media ethics is suitable for todays and tomorrow’s news media that is immediate, interactive and “always on” – a journalism of amateurs and professionals. Most of the principles were developed over the past century, originating in the construction of professional, objective ethics for mass commercial newspapers in the late 19th century.

We are moving towards a mixed news media – a news media citizen and professional journalism across many media platforms. This new mixed news media requires a new  mixed media ethics – guidelines that apply to amateur and professional whether they blog, Tweet, broadcast or write for newspapers. Media ethics needs to be rethought and reinvented for the media of today, not of yesteryear. what are its global responsibilities? Should media ethics reformulate its aims and norms so as to guide a journalism that is now global in reach and impact? What would that look like?

The changes challenge the foundations of media ethics. The challenge runs deeper than debates about one or another principle, such as objectivity. The challenge is greater than specific problems, such as how newsrooms can verify content from citizens. The revolution requires us to rethink assumptions. What can ethics mean for a profession that must provide instant news and analysis; where everyone with a modem is a publisher? There is lot of tensions and problems like traditional journalism v/s online journalism, their differences, values, culture etc.

Media law and ethics: Have a heart!

Every other day some or the other crime reporter says,

“Aray, yahan rape hua hai.” or,

“Ek aurat ka Saddar mein murder hua hai, story chahiye?”

We don’t even stop and think twice before asking,

“Nahi, is mein naya kya hai? Mazay ka murder tha?Koi weird detail pata chali?”

The more gruesome details he can get his hands on, the better. I know it sounds horrible but it spices up the story. There are lot many cases which can be brought in the lime light. For example, Aarushi Murder case, Patel Para, Jessica Case. There was a case a couple of months ago of the alleged Patel Para serial killer. A man was killing women from a lower middle class background and leaving their chopped up bodies around the city – usually in a three part series.

There were three things which made the police suspect it was the same man – the words ‘phone call’, and ‘Patel Para’. The bodies were cut in a similar way and left in the same area. The Soldier Bazaar police or people from the neighbourhood usually just found the pieces randomly in the trash or under a tree.

When normally such cases come our senior crime reporter went to the morgue to see the bodies, she came back with details like how the flesh was sliced from the bone or how one woman’s breasts were delicately cut and left on a board for an examination. Obviously, these details didn’t make it to the page. The story was toned down quite a bit and I was disappointed. I mean these people need to learn a lot. They just need their story hook or by crook, and are not at all concerned about the victim or their family. I mean how ridiculous it could be?

However, after attending majority workshops related to women, I felt like I was either an insensitive jerk or there was no way to report on such issues. Because in this field people are not only heartless but also mean, just run behind covering the story and getting TRP’s for their channel.

A rape case or murder case is very clinically reported. Because in such cases we have all the basic details like the name, place, time, and then what the police or family have to say.

In a woman’s case, the police will immediately jump to the conclusion that the woman had a ‘loose character’.

They will drag her name through dirt and use derogatory terms which will indirectly comment on her lifestyle – but this is just in English papers, in other papers it is even worse.

I suppose the media was unprepared to deal with these stories. When any rape victim is interviewed by The News channel, she’s asked to go into details about the rape. Since their rape cases became political, these women received a different sort of coverage. In the pro-government side of the print media, it was defamatory; in the relatively liberal sector, they tried to tone it down but I guess it must have been difficult.

If a reporter files a rape story today, we are told to remove the name of the woman or girl to make sure her identity is protected in every possible way. Maybe it’s to avoid the media circus that their lives could become – looking at how such cases are covered in the media, print or electronic.

Maybe we should just not write about it till we’re sure we won’t judge or break down and cry. I just hope this same situation doesn’t arises with the upcoming future journalist.

BRAIN STORMING ON FREE EXPRESSION???

For the past two weeks or more, a fierce debate has raged about the publishing of the offensive video and French magazine cartoons about Mohammed. Predictably, the debate has been structured around two positions – a strong call for free expression (offensive or not) versus calls for protection against offensive material.

Free expression is all about a “hecklers veto” where people can shout down forms of expression they don’t like. This is essentially a slippery slope argument which worries that restraint on expression in one area of society can lead to restraint in other areas of society. When it comes to free speech, it appears to be ‘all or nothing.’

Expert in restraint tend to focus on the feelings of offense caused by the expression in question, and to call for laws to stop such offense.

Debates on free expression and offended parties often miss the key question: What serious harm has the expression actually caused or is likely to cause, and is it sufficient to warrant ethical and legal condemnation?

In any tolerably liberal society, restraint on expression cannot be based on causing offense, or of causing hurt feelings, even when deeply held beliefs are insulted. Causing offense is too subjective to act as a reliable criterion for restraining expression. Some people can be offended by just about anything, from what people wear to gays kissing each other on their TV screens.

What does matter is harm, not offense? The real ethical question is whether publications or free expression cause unjustifiable harm to individuals, groups, and vulnerable minorities. For example, publications against religions, lifestyles, sexual practice, and minorities not only ‘offend.’ They may create a harmful, poisonous environment in which these groups must live.

For example, consider a newspaper in a conservative town. It launches a campaign against gays, publishing photos of gays and accusing them of being a threat to children. The paper doesn’t just express its views, freely. It doesn’t just ‘cause offense’ to gays. It does much more than that. The publication causes real harm to the gay population, prompting them to feel under attack, and perhaps to not socialize as freely as they did before. Such coverage is ethically wrong because of the harm caused, not because it offends some people.

  Why not also restrict publications that cause harm to the interests of people by creating, or contributing to, a poisonous social climate. The main issue is not that citizens have to develop thick skins against insults. That is true, but it misses the main point: the impact and harm of the targeted, vulnerable group.

Where does this leave us?

We — citizens and the news media — need better arguments for what types of speech should or should not be restrained. If I am right, journalists need to cover these free speech issues with greater subtly for the principles and complexities involved.

We need to rethink our principles of free expression in a global, pluralistic world.

MEDIA MISLEADS THE PUBLIC - POVERTY OF JOURNALISM ETHICS

The controversy swirling around the closing of lot of World shows, once again, the dreary truth that journalism is often a poor place to look for serious and honest ethical discussion.

Whenever journalists get caught acting unethically, as in the phone hacking scandal, we see a number of typical and unedifying responses:

1.      Circle the wagons and impute unethical motives to their critics. Point the finger elsewhere. Instead of dealing with facts, attack other people. Try to dodge ethical questions aimed at their own behaviour.

2.      Claim they follow “strict standards” although they don’t.

3.      Amid well-justified public outrage against ethical abuses, argue that nothing can be done. Raise the spectre that any talk of holding the press more responsible means the end of a free press. Claim that the press is perfectly capable of regulating itself and, even if it is not so capable, there is no other press system worthy of consideration.

All of these tendencies are found in the writings of journalists in India and elsewhere over the past few days. Self-regulated media can be a free press.

Journalists want to force the public to believe in false news– a free press must be almost or completely self-regulated.  Self-regulation is not at all there in journalism or in journalist. Journalist keeps on trying and convincing the public to trust in them, but people have stopped trusting them from decades. How can such journalists expect the public to take their mantras of “free press” and “self-regulation” seriously while they avoid issues of media power and media corruption of major institutions? In today’s era journalist are not serious about ethical standards or responsible journalism. When there is no news to telecast, they simply for nothing scorn on people who speak about ethics. And once everything comes in front of the public media try to hide it.

The public must be able to trust the messenger, not just the message.

SOCIAL MEDIA — PUBLIC CULTURE OF REVOLUTION OR REPRESSION???

This article is all about how social media who seems to be so alone is undermining authoritarian leaders. The democratic movements admire the courage of the people in the streets; I am fascinated by their use of social media. I am also fascinated by how new forms of media are used in ways never envisaged by their creators. The revolution in media has created a revolution in journalism ethics.

One area where the ethical revolution is evident is a new emphasis on certain functions of journalism that have long played a secondary role in the history of journalism and its ethics.But, we need to take a larger view when assessing the democratic potential of new media. Regimes are catching over the media revolution slowly and gradually. Security officials are learning to use new media to track down activists and protest leaders. The Facebook site of a leading protester can be a gold mine of information on his political networks. The use of news media until recently has stressed the cognitive activity of individuals receiving news provided by an external source such as a newspaper, and then forming their opinions.

Now a days, police and security officials from India have mastered the learning curve for new media and can match the media savvy of many democracy groups. It seems that protesters in these countries need to take their media usage to a new level — finding ways to not leave electronic trails for security forces.

These are sobering facts that should temper our sometimes belief in the positive power of new media.

Of course, even if security forces under repressive regimes use new media to inhibit protests, there is no guarantee that this will protect a regime from protest and perhaps revolution. There are other forces than media at work, including poverty, despair about the future, long-festering resentments at the loss of basic liberties, government corruption, and so on.   True, media alone does not cause revolution. But media combined with the right economic, social and political forces can be a potent threat to any leader, anywhere. We still need to learn lot from other countries. Now the people need to decide is social media a revolution or repression?