Remembering Esmond
Excerpts of the keynote address delivered by N. Ram, former editor of
The Hindu, at the inauguration of the Esmond Wickremesinghe award for
media freedom on his 30th death anniversary on September 29 at the BMICH.
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Esmond Wickremesinghe |
Esmond Wickremesinghe (May 29, 1920-September 29, 1985) is one of the
most interesting and significant figures in the two-century-old history
of the news media and journalism in South Asia. His engagement with the
newspaper world over close to four decades divides cleanly into two
chapters.
The first chapter covers his hands-on editorial and business
leadership of Sri Lanka's leading newspaper group, the Associated
Newspapers of Ceylon, between 1947 and 1973. The second chapter sees
contributions of a different kind, moral and strategic leadership,
following nationalization of the Lake House group, of an independent
journalism experiment managed by working journalists.
During this period, Esmond made forays in the wider realm of politics
and foreign policy - a role that brought him to India twice, in
1984-1985, on a peace-building mission as President J.R. Jayewardene's
foreign policy advisor.
The media experiment involved three newspapers published,
even-handedly, in the three languages of the country. These papers
worked, as he told his IPI audience in 1975, on the simple formula of
"publishing all the news the government wants to hide." It remains a
pretty good formula today, in every country where the news media as a
relatively independent democratic institution matter.
If I may be allowed to strike a personal note, 'Esmond', as he was
always referred to by my father, G. Narasimhan, and my uncle, G. Kasturi,
was professionally and personally close to the generation at the helm of
The Hindu that preceded me. The two newspaper people from Sri Lanka who
were household names in our family - admired for standing up for the
independence and freedom of the press - were Esmond and Tarzie Vittachi,
editor of The Ceylon Observer and author of Emergency 58.
Industry pioneer
Contemporaries, both played important roles in the affairs of the
International Press Institute, Esmond, as an IPI stalwart and its
chairman between 1966 and 1968, Tarzie as Asian Director between 1960
and 1965. Not surprisingly, the award in May 1965 of the 'Golden Pen of
Freedom' to Esmond at the Congress of the International Federation of
Newspaper Publishers for his "huge five-year battle to maintain Press
freedom in Ceylon" (to quote from the citation) was reported in the
columns of The Hindu.
Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, which was adopted in
1950, guarantees "freedom of speech and expression" as a fundamental
right. This right, hard won in the freedom struggle against a highly
repressive and censorious British Raj, is deemed to be unamendable
thanks to the 'basic structure' doctrine propounded by the Supreme
Court.
Freedom of the press is not explicitly mentioned by the Indian
Constitution but the Supreme Court of India has, through judicial
interpretation, read it into Article 19.
Unfortunately, freedom of speech and expression is hemmed in, and to
a significant extent undone, by Article 19(2). This provides for
restrictions on the fundamental right prescribed by law - some
reasonable, most not.
Notable among the unreasonable restrictions that remain on the
statute book or in practice are the law of criminal defamation, the
undefined power of contempt of court, unmodified legislative privilege,
the law of sedition, other illiberal provisions of the IPC, the Unlawful
Activities (Prevention) Act and other draconian laws enacted in the name
of fighting extremism and terrorism.
Media freedom in India is considered 'incomplete' because the print
media and the broadcast media have not been placed on an equal
constitutional and legal footing. The higher courts have not judged it
necessary to confer effective Article 19(1)(a) protection on radio and
television.
Chequered history
Sri Lanka has had a chequered history when it comes to media freedom
and independence. Article 14(1)(a) and 14(1)(g) of the 1978 Constitution
are more or less analogous to 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(g) of the Indian
Constitution (except that Article 14(1)(a) expressly includes
'publication' under 'freedom of speech and expression'). The
restrictions "as may be prescribed by law" are seemingly narrower in
scope but in key respects, the laws and their enforcement, especially
during the long period of the ethnic conflict, have been even more
draconian.
The Sri Lanka Press Council Law, No. 5 of 1973, under which the Press
Council has sweeping powers to haul up for punishment journalists and
newspapers for a variety of purported offences, does not sit well with
any modern conception of press freedom. The Press Complaints Commission
of Sri Lanka, a self-regulatory mechanism set up by editors and
publishers in 2003 and having a well-formulated Editors' Code, provides
a sound and progressive alternative in principle. But it seems to lack
teeth, including the power to levy fines against offending newspapers.
The PCCSL as a credible and independent self-regulatory body can be
strengthened by statutory underpinning, allocation of adequate funds by
Parliament, and provision of an appellate tribunal that will satisfy
legal requirements.
It will also be a good idea for the government and Parliament to
fast-track the process of settling and adopting the Right to Information
legislation.
May I mention in this connection that India's experience with the
Right to Information Act (RTI), which came into force in 2005, has been
extremely positive and rewarding.
But there is one key area where Sri Lanka has stolen a march over
other South Asian nations. It is the first and only country in the South
Asian region to have done away with the law of criminal defamation.
Credit for this must go to the RanilWickremesinghe government and to
Parliament. In the Indian campaign for decriminalizing the law of
defamation, we have been commending to our government and lawmakers what
Sri Lanka did as early as June 2002.
It is clear that in the South Asian region at least, the contemporary
news media largely derive their strengths from history. Indian press is
more than two centuries old. It has always been a highly political
press. Its strengths have been shaped by its historical experience and,
in particular, by its association with the freedom struggle as well as
movements for social emancipation, reformand amelioration. The long
struggle for independence; the sharp ideological and political divides;
controversies and battles over social reform; radical and revolutionary
aspirations and movements; compromising as well as fighting tendencies;
and the competition between self-serving and public service visions of
journalism - these have all found reflection in the character and
performance of the Indian press over the long term. It is this rich
history that accounts for the seriousness, relevance and public-spirited
orientation of the press at its best.
Public-spirited
The tradition of a strong and assertive political press has continued
and flourished. Investigative journalism is extensively practised, with
investigations and exposés of political corruption making quite a splash
in the polity. Today satellite television competes with newspapers
aggressively in trying to influence the political agenda of the States
and the nation. With their expanded reach, these news media together
serve as an effective antidote to any trends of de-politicization in
society. There is significant space for the expression of political
dissent and contrary political opinions.
Pluralism in the Indian media can be said to reflect the vast
regional, linguistic, socio-economic, and cultural heterogeneity of the
subcontinent. A positive factor for both the print media and news
television is that over the past quarter-century, their social
representativeness has broadened. For one thing, there has been a rapid
feminization of the newsroom. Alongside this, the composition of the
journalistic workforce has become more inclusive in socio-economic and
regional terms. However, the number of Dalit journalists in the
mainstream news media continues to be insignificant.
Social responsibility
The social responsibility concept arose in reaction to an extreme and
self-serving form of this 'we are not answerable to anyone but
ourselves' posture assumed by American press barons. In the US, the
first systematic theory of a socially responsible press was presented in
1947 in the report of the Commission on Freedom of the Press, headed by
Robert M. Hutchins.
The Hutchins Commission laid down five 'standards of performance' for
a free and responsible press. These were to provide a 'truthful,
comprehensive account of the day's events in a context which gives them
meaning,' to serve as a 'forum for the exchange of comment and
criticism', to offer 'a representative picture of the constituent groups
of society,' to present and clarify the "goals and values of
society,"and to provide "full access to the day's intelligence."
The specification of 'standards of performance' needs revision and
updating. But there can be little doubt that over the long term, the
conception of socially responsible news media has been influential and
has come to stay. A substantial international literature has developed
on templates for socially and ethically accountable journalism and also
on the constitutive 'elements of journalism.' This has yielded codes of
practice or professional ethics that have privileged such principles as
truth telling, freedom and independence, fairness and justice,
humaneness, and working for the social or public good. The codes have
emphasized such disciplines as fact checking, verification,
investigation, rigorous data sourcing and analysis, providing context
and meaning and maintaining perspective.
New approaches, such as 'open journalism' and 'crowd sourcing', new
multi-media forms, and new disciplines, notably 'data journalism' are
beginning to change the face of journalism in this digital age.
Conceptual framework
In critically assessing media performance, a clear distinction needs
to be drawn and maintained between the state or fortunes of the news
media and the state of journalism. The two states tend to get conflated
in public as well media marketing discourse. High growth rates in the
media sector may offer opportunities but they do not guarantee quality.
There needs to be more focus on relevance and quality issues. To do
this, we need a conceptual framework to evaluate news media.
These functions may be termed as the credible-informational and the
critical-investigative-adversarial. An accompanying condition-which
evolves over time, typically as an outcome of a democratic or
workingpeople's struggle - is that the political system gives newspapers
free or relatively free rein, and a public culture of valuing these
functions develops. Performed over time, the two central functions
working together build trust in the press, or more accurately, in
individual newspapers.
There are also valuable derivatives of the two central, twinned
functions. The first is the agency of the press in public education.
Second is the serving as acritical forum for analysis, disputation and
comment. An idealized conception of this is attributed to the American
playwright Arthur Miller: "A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation
talking to itself." A third derivative is agenda building.
Social contribution
Socially conscious media can trigger agenda-building processes to
help produce democratic and progressive outcomes.
Another function of the news media is the pastime or entertainment
function. At its worst, it seeks to purvey escapist entertainment,
celebrity worship, vapid talk shows, scandal and even voyeurism. But it
can be something quite different - engaging, entertaining, delving into
life's small pleasures, covering hobbies and recreation.
It is axiomatic that the assertion and practice of media freedom
cannot be exclusively against regimentation, control, and heavy-handed
regulation by the state and its instrumentalities. An internal structure
that enables and empowers its journalists to practise freedom,
independence, and social responsibility, sets high standards of
intellectual and professional performance, and motivates them to achieve
these standards is equally important.
Diversity and pluralism have long been considered strengths in the
media. In several developed countries, media monopoly has developed in a
big way, eroding diversity, pluralism, and the values of serious
journalism. In his classic work The Media Monopoly, first published in
1983 and the updated, The New Media Monopoly, published in 2004, Ben
Bagdikian powerfully documents and analyses the death of media diversity
in the United States. He indicts the process that, by the beginning of
the 21st Century, has resulted in five large media conglomerates
creating 'the daily and nightly news world for a majority of Americans'.
The situation in India and other South Asian countries is rather
different, as is appropriate to a stage of media development when
ageing, economic maturity and the problems of maturity have not yet set
in. But here too, monopolistic tendencies and aggressive market
practices aimed at aggrandizing market share and killing competition
have manifested themselves in both the press and news television
sectors. In India, business groups whose core businesses, such as
mining, are a far cry from the news business, and also political bosses
of different hue have entered the media scene in several states as
proprietors or financiers of newspaper groups and television channels.
Critics point out that Indian journalism is facing increasing
pressure from advertisers, marketing personnel, corporate managers and
even senior journalists to present and prioritize 'feel good' factors -
rather than highlight the reality of mass deprivations and what to do
about them.
Poverty and mass deprivation, basic livelihood issues, the impact of
policies on these issues, the state of agriculture and the countryside
remain massively under-covered in Indian newspapers and the broadcast
media. Fortunately, there are significant exceptions. P. Sainath's
investigations of rural distress, farmers' suicides, and mass
migrations, which won him several honours, including a Magsaysay Award,
are in the finest traditions of people-oriented, investigative,
agenda-building journalism. Such influential and iconic work, along with
the lively contributions of young idealistic reporters on these subjects
in various Indian languages, suggest a way out of this bind - provided a
public culture of valuing such journalism can be built up.
The issue of 'paid news' exploded in the public sphere in the
aftermath of India's 2009 general election. A section of the press
revealed that a large number of newspapers, small, medium-sized, and
big, and also several television channels had sold promotional news
packages of specified size, using an under-the-table rate card, to
candidates in State Assembly and parliamentary elections. Candidates who
could not pay, or refused to pay, were blotted out of news coverage.
There were special rates for negative coverage of the candidates'
opponents. It was every bit of a rogue practice as the UK's phone
hacking affair was.
Another deeply worrying trend is the buying out wholly or in large
part of major media organizations by large business groups whose core
businesses have nothing to do with the media. The aim is to use
established media single-mindedly to further their business interests.
Fragile finances
Media take-overs, mergers, and the process of conglomeration have
been happening in the developed world for a few decades now. The media
world has long been accustomed to the ways of Murdochism and to the even
bigger story of how five mega corporations - Time Warner, Disney, News
Corporation, Bertelsmann, and Viacom - came to own most of the
newspapers, magazines, books, radio and TV stations, and movie studios
in the United States. But it was the US$315 million acquisition in 2011
of Huffington Post -an independent, idealistic and pioneering free-to-aironline
news and opinion site founded by Ariana Huffington - that made people
sit up and wonder what was happening in the digital media space.
Around the time of India's 2014 general election, a major television
group with a sizeable following, a hard-won professional reputation but
fragile finances was taken over by India's top business group, leading
to the exit, before and after the election, of several journalists,
including one of India's best-known television personalities. The
post-take over scenario in this case is still unfolding. There has also
been market buzz that some Indian newspapers that have been bleeding
financially for years have landed themselves in a position of complete
financial dependence on big business patrons to keep afloat.
As the fragile finances of several established old media
organizations come under increasing pressure from a combination of
factors in this digital age, the prospects of take-over by big business
groups with core businesses unrelated to the media will grow stronger.
Manipulation of news, analysis, and comment to suit the owners'
financial or political interests; the downgrading and devaluing of
editorial functions and content in some leading newspaper and news
television organizations; systematic dumbing down, led by the nose by
certain types of market research; the growing willingness within
newspapers and news channels to tailor the editorial product to subserve
advertising and marketing goals set by owners and senior management
personnel; hyper-commercialization; price wars and aggressive practices
in the home bases of other newspapers to overwhelm and kill competition;
advertorials where the paid-for aspect of the news-like content is not
properly disclosed or disclosed at all; private treaties; rogue
practices like paid election campaign news and bribe-taking for
favourable coverage.
These negative trends are likely to get strengthened when the news
media become subsidiaries, branches, and agencies of mega-corporations
whose core business interests lie elsewhere. If this is what it takes to
have thriving newspapers and other news media, then there is something
seriously wrong with this growth path. The real challenge is to find
economically sustainable and politically astute ways and means to loosen
and eventually to break the stranglehold big business has been
establishing over the news media to the detriment of free and
independent journalism in a seemingly irreversible historical process. |