A site for alliance of civilisations

September 01, 2014 12:43 am | Updated April 21, 2016 04:50 pm IST

Milestones are evaluator markers to look back in order to look forward. They not only help us to learn from past mistakes, but also reiterate the positives that have contributed in realising our goals and dreams. I was invited by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) to be a panellist in the session about the media conversation across divides in its Sixth Global Forum held at Bali last week. This also marks my hundredth column as the Readers’ Editor.

There is a method in the way I have handled my task as the interlocutor between this newspaper and millions of its readers. One of the champions of free speech, Salman Rushdie coined an abbreviation — P2C2E (Process Too Complicated To Explain) — in his modern day fable, Haroun and the Sea of Stories . He deftly used P2C2E to talk about censorship, authoritarianism, resistance and aspiration for justice. An ombudsman does not have the poetic licence to deploy P2C2E. The very nature of his work is rigorous application of PI2E, that is Process Important to Explain.

Over the past hundred weeks, I have consciously worked at two levels — addressing the specific issues of editorial lapses and locating best practices of journalism within the larger global media scape. The idea of oscillating between the particular and the universal opened up the space for dialogue with the readers. Our discussions covered a range of issues concerning the media: the legal and regulatory framework, the balance between freedom of expression and social obligations, the judicious mix of two crucial elements of journalism — what the public is interested in and the public interest, and, most importantly, the relationship between the board room and the newsroom.

It was possible to conduct these interactions in a transparent manner due to three crucial factors: first, the faith of the readers of this newspaper in this institution of self-regulation and their agency to ask pertinent questions; second, the commitment of the management of this newspaper to keep this space open and free, and third, the dedication of the journalists working for this paper to uphold the cardinal principles and core values of journalism. It was a journey that combined media literacy with the demands of ombudsmanship.

In this context, the invitation from the UNAOC is significant. In 1993, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Samuel P. Huntington came up with an idea of the clash of civilisations. His hypothesis was that the principal conflicts of global politics would occur between nations and groups of different civilisations and the clash of civilisations would dominate global politics where the fault lines between civilisations would become the battle lines of the future. Though scholars like Edward Said and Amartya Sen have effectively questioned Huntington’s argument, security establishments largely embraced it.

Global response

The UNAOC was a global response to retrieve the space for coexistence. It aims to forge collective political will and to mobilise concerted action at institutional levels. It wants to improve understanding and cooperative relations among nations and peoples across cultures and religions and, in the process, counter the forces that fuel polarisation and extremism. It is one of those rare intergovernmental initiatives that recognises the role of the media in bridging cultural and religious divides and respecting diversity. The core assumption of the UNAOC is “differences within and between societies should be neither feared nor repressed, but cherished as a precious asset of humanity.”

This intervention was necessitated because of the macro context. Communities across the globe are at the mercy of propagandists and unscrupulous community leaders, and the role of journalism as a trusted source of reliable and pluralist information remains central to retain space for peaceful coexistence. Cutting-edge communication tools sometimes lead to misinformation wars, hate speech and social networks shaping the agenda of the mainstream media. In this environment, the panel was asked to look at: how the media can keep faith with the ethical values of journalism in these conditions; how journalists can contribute to building better understanding between communities, when media-savvy extremists are at work; what are the best practices that governments can undertake to create the conditions for media pluralism and independent journalism; whether there is a need for a code of ethics; and, where to draw the line without infringing on the freedom of expression.

The panel did not have any easy answers to these troubling questions. The new deadline pressure caused by the 24x7 digital platforms do infringe on the basic tenet of journalism — the act of verification. In the rush to be first among the breaking news brigade, the process of cross-checking and verification, which needs both time and resources, is given short shrift.

A trusted newspaper like The Hindu strives to be a site for the alliance of civilisations and refrains from being a catalyst for a clash of civilisations. The core of the narrative is the respect for human dignity and the celebration of the infinite plurality of humanity. It is a narrative that shuns bigotry but helps to retain curiosity about the other. The core of ethical journalism is to resist stereotyping of communities and faiths.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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