By D N Singh
Some ‘gurus’ in the field of journalism have drawn the inferences that a journalist is an intermediary between the system that rules and the ones who get ruled. So, the role of a journalist is deftly underlined that he or she has to disseminate the news about the problems and aspirations of the ruled and also play communicator role to inform the people about the activities of the system relating to people’s welfare. In nut shell, it can be as well said that, a journo is a well informed Post-man of sort who delivers views for both sides.
That’s it. But some purists professing journalism have also said, journalism is “printing what someone else does not want, everything else is public relation” it came from none other than one of thee greatest ever journalist, George Orwell. Who never quit the path of objectivity till his last breath.
Two recent incidents of ill-treatment and assault on some journalists in India have raised many eyebrows. One in Madhya Pradesh, where a cop exhibited the self-arrogated authority to strip some journalists (immaterial of the reasons for summoning them to the police station) and in another case, in Odisha, when a journalist, called Loknath Dalei, was subjected to physical thrashing and subsequently hospitalised but with his legs shackled by hand-cuffs in Nilgiri, in Balasore distrct.
The pictures of both the incidents going viral in social media manifest the bizarre mind-sets of the concerned police officials who resort to such plebeian methods either to avenge or do it at the behest of some who never come to the open. The victim in this case had problems with a local police and had a physical scuffle with a traffic police.
Madhya Pradesh government has ordered an investigation into the alleged excesses. In the case of Odisha incident, the concerned IIC of the police station has simply been transferred from there to somewhere else.
In another nerve shattering incident in Odisha, a vieio journalist, Manas Swain, working for a portal called ‘Sampurna’ in Bhubaneswar, run by a lady Sarmistha Rout, had been kidnapped, brutally beaten and then killed and later buried far away from the city.
The entire conspiracy was hatched by Sarmishta who also runs an old-age home, the principal accused. As reported the video journalist was in possession of some video clips which Rout wanted from the deceased journalist but could not. What was in that vedio was a mystery, and it still remains so.
There are several people, along with Sarmistha Rout, including a retired senior officer of the government of Odisha, all are alleged to be the accomplices in the crime. The matter is being investigated by the State Crime Branch.
But in the case of Loknath, who was in a hospital bed with his legs cuffed, the punishment (if it was a punishment at all) meted out to the IIC, was a kind of cordial nudge i.e. transfer to some other police station. The said IIC could not have expected anything more convenient as a punishment.
All said and done, the issue is about intolerance towards the profession.
If any news does not have the elements of little excitement, important for people with a note on truth, people can ignore reading it. People want to understand what is good for them not merely what the system thinks, is good.
The police being a part of the system and notably an important part, it must have the judiciousness to differentiate between rational and irrational. Likewise, journalists have to reciprocate with equal balance and restraint.
Let us not kill a messenger by DN. is well written and to the point.