Last week, > we witnessed the collapse of the rule of law in the national capital. It was chilling to realise that the country’s democratic fabric was being undermined by a combination of a parody Twitter account, a photoshopped image, and a doctored video. If the role of a section of the media in promoting a doctored video to manufacture outrage wasn’t disturbing enough, some of the comments on this newspaper’s meticulous coverage of l’affaire Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) were as unnerving.
L’affaire JNU is a reminder to journalism to deploy its core values in the age of digital excess and follow rules in using user-generated content at prime time. Four years ago, the Nieman Reports, a Harvard University-based website and print quarterly that explores journalism’s most important challenges, had a package of articles that gave advice, presented case studies and provided insights into the verification of information flowing from social networks and a multitude of other sources. I would urge every reporter and subeditor to read them to understand the challenges and opportunities presented by the contemporary, decentralised, democratised and socialised media world and to create a brand of journalism that does not undermine the democratic fabric by spreading lies, propaganda and motivated leaks.
Talking about the power of rumour and lies, Craig Silverman, an award-winning journalist and the founder of Regret the Error, a blog that reports on media errors and corrections, observed that falsehood spreads as quickly as, if not faster than, facts, as in many cases they prove more compelling, more convincing and more clickable.
Importance of verification One of the issues that emerged from the concurrent reading of the Neiman Reports and the reports pertaining to the developments at JNU is that ignoring the basic rule — checking the source of the content — can prove to be a disaster. Writing about the BBC’s verification hub, David Turner, a former correspondent at the Financial Times , observed: “The golden rule, say Hub veterans, is to get on the phone whoever has posted the material. Even the process of setting up the conversation can speak volumes about the source’s credibility: unless sources are activists living in a dictatorship who must remain anonymous to protect their lives, people who are genuine witnesses to events are usually eager to talk. Anyone who has taken photos or video needs to be contacted in any case to request their permission, as the copyright holder, to use it.”
When eminent professors from prestigious universities condemned the arrest of JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and the culture of authoritarian menace that the present government in India has generated, one expected reasonable persons to reflect and ponder over the implications. But there were 116 comments for this news item, of which more than 50 per cent was pure vitriol and abuse. A very narrow notion of nation was invoked to slander the world of knowledge and compassion. In this scheme of things there was no space for universal norms, global standards and academic rigour.
Given the paucity of space, let me share some details about just one scholar in this list, Barbara Harriss-White, whose work guided my own reporting and the policy directions of my State. Her research on Tamil Nadu is one of the finest field studies to document the transformation of the State since Independence. Nearly three decades ago, S. Guhan, who had the distinction of being an effective Finance Secretary and a sharp economist, explained how her study of the noon meal scheme helped to understand affirmative action not only as a nutrition intervention, but also as an education, employment and social welfare intervention. From the early 1970s, Professor Harriss-White has been watching India’s development through the lens of a small town, Arni, in northern Tamil Nadu. She deploys a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective on Arni and its rural hinterland to bring out how government policies that fail to take into account the realities of small-town life in India have unintended and often perverse consequences. If scholars like her express concern, it would be prudent to take note and act.
Gatekeeping the comments section The toxic nature of the comments section was touched upon in earlier columns: “Yes to criticism, no to vitriol” (November 25, 2013), “Hilary Mantel is not alone” (May 5, 2014), “Saving public sphere from trolls” (August 25, 2014) and “Undeterred by malice” (August 1, 2015). But these have neither reduced the venom nor made comment moderators sensitive. My fellow board member in the Organisation of News Ombudsmen and one of the longest serving Readers’ Editors of the world, Stephen Pritchard, for his publication, The Observer, looked at how certain subjects — race, immigration, and Islam in particular — attract an unacceptable level of toxic commentary. He also looked at the question of anonymity and rightly concluded that it’s too late to demand disclosure by commenters as anyone determined to stay anonymous can create an infinite number of online aliases.
To deal with the issue, The Observer editorial team decided three weeks ago not to open the comments section on pieces on those three topics unless the moderators knew they had the capacity to support the conversation and believed a positive debate was possible. Further, the team also said that if these sections were open, it was likely that threads would close sooner than the regular three-day window. Mr. Pritchard feels that this move will be welcomed not only by journalists but by the many thousands of readers who already contribute constructively to positive debates, offering accounts of personal experiences, considered opinion and, of course, constructive criticism of journalism.
In the case of The Hindu , my suggestion is that we exercise caution in the comments section for articles, reports and analysis dealing with three crucial subjects: caste, gender and communalism. Any comment that does not contribute to the debate but debases the public sphere has the potential to undermine the wellspring of a democratic polity.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
