Aidan White, director of the Ethical Journalism Network, has been at the forefront for nearly three decades in establishing the ground rules for handling sources. “Good journalism is only ever as good as our sources of information,” he wrote. “Most of those sources are personal, many are official, and some will be anonymous whistle-blowers. Together they provide reporters with the lifeblood of their trade — reliable, accurate and truthful information.” My own yardstick to evaluate sources is based on three key issues: accuracy, fairness and public interest in reporting.
The time, however, has come to go beyond conventional wisdom. Till recently, a reporter could neatly demarcate official information from the government from other additional information. The rules about sources apply for only the latter as the former is assumed to be a factual statement put out in the public domain by the state apparatus. But what happens if the primary source, the government, puts out contradicting facts?
Confusion over editions
A number of readers asked us to clarify a contradiction that had crept in with regard to the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) in Bengaluru — whether it was the 14th or the 15th edition of the meet as given in the front-page story, “ Note ban critics revere black money: PM ” , and in the Editorial page main article, “ Revisiting a passage from India ” (Jan. 9, 2017), respectively. In our Corrections and Clarifications column on Jan. 11, 2017, we said that it was the 15th PBD. From where, then, did the reporter get the information that this was the 14th PBD? The official flyer issued by the Government of India said that it was the 14th edition and the reporter reported it.
The website of the Ministry of External Affairs, which conducts the PBD, listed 14 earlier PBDs held between 2003 and 2016. It also had the keynote address by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj delivered on January 10, 2016 to mark the 14th edition. The announcements in various Indian embassies across the world called the latest edition in Bengaluru the 15th PBD. The websites of the Indian embassies in Italy, Portugal and Senegal sought nomination for Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards that would be conferred during the 15th edition of the PBD convention to be held on 7-9 January, 2017 in Bengaluru. What was lost in this number debate was the fact that the Government of India decided to have a different format for the PBD — the event would be held in different States every two years and a smaller event would be held in Delhi every alternate year. Last year, despite earlier reports to the contrary, a PBD was indeed held in Delhi, albeit on a much smaller scale, in which the British Employment Minister, Priti Patel, was the chief guest.
Events that led to demonetisation
There were queries asking us to give the correct sequence of events that led to the November 8 announcement of demonetisation. Readers wanted to know why the column “ Fifty days later ” (Jan 12, 2017) contradicted an earlier report, “ Demonetisation is in national interest, govt. says in Rajya Sabha ” (November 16, 2016). The November report was about what Power Minister Piyush Goyal, as a member of the treasury bench, spoke on the floor of the House. He said that it was the Reserve Bank of India that gave the proposal to the government and when the proposal came before the Cabinet, it was approved.
The January column was the reconstruction of the sequence of events that emerged from a few replies to RTIs, and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance. Three key facts in that column are: the RBI received a letter from the government on November 7, 2016 that advised the Central Bank to withdraw the legal tender of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes in circulation; despite working with a depleted strength of just three out of 10 independent members due to vacancies, the RBI Board met the next day and gave its consent to convert more than 80 per cent of the cash into paper; and the RBI had received no reference, call for views, or information from the government on demonetisation prior to November 7.
There is no contradiction in the newspaper. It reported Mr. Goyal’s speech in Parliament, in which he clearly said that it was the RBI that runs the monetary policy and it was the RBI’s board that took the decision to demonetise ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes. The report was given prominence because the speech was made in the presence of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Journalists report parliamentary proceedings.
The twin acts of fact-checking and contextualising an issue follow policy pronouncements and their rationale by the government. The duration between the government’s pronouncement and an informed critique of the same depends partly on the levels of transparency of the state apparatus and partly on the journalists’ ability to access facts, figures, the sequence of events and the details of internal discussions within the government. I do not see journalistic lapses in these two cases. The state apparatus cannot abdicate its responsibility of providing the correct picture. One can understand the need for secrecy to take a colossal decision like demonetisation. But once the deed is done, the onus to explain both the rationale and the modus operandi of the decision lies with the government.
