When the dawn is looking brighter on the other side

MANINI CHATTERJEE, TT, New Delhi, Oct. 12: On a day former Union minister P. Chidambaram asked the Indian media "why are you guys falling like ninepins? ...Why is it (the media) capitulating?", an exemplary lesson in journalistic courage and integrity came from an unexpected place - from a country we are taught to hate, from a flawed democracy we love to revile, from a newspaper called Dawn published in Karachi.

In an editorial today, Dawn robustly defended the October 6 story reported by the paper's senior writer Cyril Almeida of a meeting between Pakistan's senior-most government and intelligence officials where the foreign secretary spoke of the country's increasing international isolation, which was followed by a discussion on how to deal with militancy in the country.

Almeida's report said the civilian government went on to warn the military leadership not to interfere in the government's efforts to act against militant groups operating inside Pakistan.

The Dawn editorial (above) that was published on Wednesday and reprinted here with the newspaper’s permission:

There are times in a news organisation’s history that determine its adherence to the highest principles of journalism — its duty to inform the public objectively, accurately and fearlessly.

This paper recently reported an extraordinary closed-door meeting between top government and intelligence officials where the foreign secretary briefed them on what he saw as Pakistan’s growing international isolation; following this, there was a discussion on the impediments in the way of dealing with the problem of militancy in the country.

The fallout of the story has been intense, and on Tuesday evening, the government placed Dawn’s senior writer, Cyril Almeida, on the Exit Control List.

While any media organisation can commit an error of judgement and Dawn is no exception, the paper believes it handled the story in a professional manner and carried it only after verification from multiple sources.

Moreover, in accordance with the principles of fair and balanced journalism, for which Dawn is respected not only in Pakistan but also internationally, it twice carried the denials issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Journalism has a long and glorious tradition of keeping its promise to its audience even in the face of enormous pressure brought to bear upon it from the corridors of power. Time has proved this to be the correct stance. Some of the most contentious yet historically significant stories have been told by news organisations while resisting the state’s narrow, self-serving and ever-shifting definition of ‘national interest’.

One could include in this list, among others, the Pentagon Papers detailing US government duplicity in its conduct of the Vietnam War; the Abu Ghraib pictures that exposed torture of prisoners at the hands of US soldiers in Iraq; the WikiLeaks release in 2010 of US State Department diplomatic communications; and Edward Snowden’s disclosure of the National Security Agency’s global surveillance system.

Even more so in Pakistan, where decades of a militarised security environment have undermined the importance of holding the state to account — something that certain sections of the media have become complicit in despite their long, hard-won struggle for freedom — such a furore as generated by the Dawn report was not unexpected.

However, this news organisation will continue to defend itself robustly against any allegation of vested interest, false reporting or violation of national security.

As gatekeeper of information that was “verified, cross-checked and fact-checked”, the editor of this paper bears sole responsibility for the story in question. The government should at once remove Mr Almeida’s name from the ECL and salvage some of its dignity.

The Pakistan government, not unexpectedly, roundly decried the story with the Prime Minister's Office issuing more than one denial - which was duly carried by Dawn. On October 10, the Pakistan government placed Almeida on the Exit Control List, preventing him from leaving the country.

Reacting to the government's action, the Dawn editorial today asserted that it had handled Almeida's story "in a professional manner and carried it only after verification from multiple sources".

It further said: "Journalism has a long and glorious tradition of keeping its promise to its audience even in the face of enormous pressure brought to bear upon it from the corridors of power. Time has proved this to be the correct stance. Some of the most contentious yet historically significant stories have been told by news organisations while resisting the state's narrow, self-serving and ever-shifting definition of 'national interest'."

The Karachi newspaper's reminder of the role of free media is particularly piquant - and not a little poignant - for us across the border, coming at a time when large sections of the Indian media appear to have given up such tenets as objectivity, fact-checking, verification, questioning received wisdom et al. in the unseemly rush to be uber-nationalistic.

As senior journalist Siddharth Varadarajan succinctly put it in the news website, The Wire, on October 8, "the Indian soldiers who attacked terror targets in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir may have returned home without any fatalities on their side but there is one casualty that the surgical strike did cause on our side of the border: Indian journalism has been left grievously injured."

Pointing out that "most news channels have crossed the line that separates journalism from PR and worse", Varadarajan first broke the story that NDTV - the channel which seeks to stand out from the raucous jingoism of some of its rivals and spins its advertising campaign around the word "trust" - had decided to censor news in the name of national interest too.

NDTV decided not to air remarks made by Rahul Gandhi on the Modi government exploiting the blood of soldiers for political gains and dropped an interview between P. Chidambaram and its star anchor Barkha Dutt on the surgical strikes and its aftermath. NDTV informed viewers under the sanctimonious title "India Above Politics" that "National security cannot be compromised by politics. The current political debate threatens to do this. NDTV will not air any remarks that risk security for political advantage."

Viewers were left wondering if the country had declared war or was under some new kind of Emergency - but no answers were forthcoming. The bewilderment only got confounded the next day when the channel broadcast live BJP president Amit Shah's press conference where he spoke at great length on national security. Shah, it might be added, heads a political party and not some army or paramilitary unit.

Besides reporting on the NDTV decision, Varadarajan sent a detailed questionnaire to the channel on why the Chidambaram interview was dropped, why the Amit Shah press conference was shown, and whether "criticism of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, or the use of pellet guns against civilians by the security forces in Kashmir, (would) be allowed on NDTV in the future?"

In her reply, NDTV co-founder Radhika Roy avoided specifics and stated: "Like all decisions we take at NDTV, we are driven by editorial and journalistic integrity and the belief that the political mud- slinging regarding the surgical strikes without a shred of evidence was actually damaging to our national security. We do not believe that we are obliged to carry every shred of drivel that has now come to pass as public discourse."

That reply raised more questions than it answered - a point underlined by Chidambaram in an interview to The Indian Express today.

Referring to Roy's reply, Chidambaram said: "One, I asked them which part of my interview contained remarks that risked security for political advantage? Two, which part of my interview was shred of drivel? Three, which part of my interview was bizarre political bickering? There's no answer."

Chidambaram then raised a more fundamental question. He asked: "Why are people falling in line?... I am asking the media: why are you guys falling like ninepins to unjustified demands, if any, from the powers that be? I don't know if the powers that be made any demand. But why are you guys falling like ninepins? It's sad. If the media, which fiercely protests, or used to fiercely protest any suggestion that the media should be restrained - why is it capitulating?"

Chidambaram is right. No one knows whether the powers that be made any demand, no one knows if the Indian media has been asked not to ask any questions or has chosen on their own to become a sword arm of the government even when there is no official war, no one knows whether the external affairs ministry forbade Indian channels to take up Pakistan's offer to take some of them to their side of the LoC - just as they took western journalists to bolster their claim that no surgical strikes had taken place - or whether the channels unilaterally turned down such an "unpatriotic" assignment.

No one knows any more the difference between censorship and self-censorship, between truth and propaganda, between journalism and jingoism.

What we do know, though, is in the world's largest democracy, which prides itself on a vibrant free media, a former home minister can now lecture us on our failings. And the president of the ruling party can felicitate us "from the bottom of my heart" for standing united because "this has not only raised the morale of the army, but also brought about an environment of excitement among the people of the country".

In another time, in another age, Indira Gandhi had infamously ushered in the concept of a "committed judiciary." Are we now entering the era of a "committed media" - without the government having to declare anything like the Emergency?