Year-end commemorative columns have a common streak. They either tend to capture an encouraging trend or document a limiting reality that has gained ground. For the year 2020, the obvious choice would be the corrosive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on journalism.
A sobering report by Taylor Mulcahey of IJNet talked about some of the changes that have taken place within journalism since the spread of the pandemic. She wrote, “Whether it’s burnout from working extra hours, layoffs at a local news publication, or misinformation spreading in WhatsApp groups, the health crisis has placed extra pressure on an industry already facing an uncertain future.” In some of my earlier columns, I have written about how the health crisis has led to remote reporting and news gathering and how that has hit one of the fundamental tenets of journalism — bearing witness.
Shrinking space
Despite these profound impacts, I am not going to dwell on the pandemic, but will look at some of the other factors that are chipping away at our democratic spaces and shrinking elbow room for dissent, difference and dialogue. This shift in the pattern of behaviour in the public sphere is nearly a decade old and clearly predates the pandemic. Many media scholars have pointed out that digital empowerment reached its peak around the Arab Spring. Irish writer Colum McCann described the moment: “The light from the Arab Spring rose from the ground up; the hope is now that the darkness doesn’t fall”. But, as Jessi Hempel of Wired points out, “the darkness has fallen”. It is no longer about digital empowerment — our concern has shifted to digital disruption and the rapid consolidation by Silicon Valley conglomerates.
In the last decade, we truly entered an era where strongman leaders, to borrow a phrase from Toni Morrison, “spawned a thicket of new laws authorizing chaos in defense of order”. These laws are as restrictive, or indeed in many instances, more restrictive than colonial judicial orders. In the constant attrition between citizens and the state, the die is firmly cast in favour of the latter. Citizens are trying in vain to find ways to restore the balance in which their dignity will not be trampled upon with impunity.
Responsible reporting
Are there journalistic means to confront something as fantastic as “Annual Flat Earth International Conference” in the United States? Why are science-deniers given space in the media in the name of fair representation? Is it right to give space to those who misguide and invent a mythical past and present? Why are we using the term ‘alternative facts’ for outright lies? It is well-documented that misinformation is germinated, incubated and nurtured by those who wield power. What should be the nature of reporting that is socially responsible?
We must remember that it is not only journalism, but journalists, too, who are facing existential questions. I have been following the painstaking documentation done by FreeSpeechCollective on the constant threat to a constitutionally guaranteed right. FreeSpeechCollective is an initiative by journalists, activists and lawyers to protect the right to freedom of expression and vigorously promote free speech and the right to dissent. Its “Impunity Indicator” tracks excesses against journalists and other democratic actors and documents the failures of various institutions — the executive, police and the judiciary — in protecting fundamental rights. Any reader who goes through the details put out by the collective will agree with its assertion that these details are indeed “a grim reminder of the tortuous, but dogged, resistance to the silencing of free speech, put up by families, friends and colleagues”.
Their latest report, ‘Behind Bars’, that records the arrests and detentions of journalists in India in the decade 2010-2020, should galvanise everyone to act. The study points out how various laws — the Indian Penal Code, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, sections of the Disaster Management Act and Epidemic Diseases Act, and Section 144 of the CrPC — were used to silence critical voices. The report reads, “Seventy-three of the 154 cases documented in this study have been reported from BJP-ruled states. Another 30 cases were reported from states ruled by BJP and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Of the cases in BJP-ruled states, Uttar Pradesh led the pack with 29 cases.”
I fervently hope 2021 ushers in a better environment for free speech and democracy.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
