Tag: Freedom Of Expression

It May be Time to Look at the Newsclick Raids Less Hysterically

By Sanjoy Narayan

The megaphones have been laid down now. The selfies and clips of journalists and others protesting in Delhi are no longer going “viral” (that unpleasant word used to describe when something spreads without much control) and the media have gone back to looking for the next big thing. As this week began, their focus, at least briefly, turned to the mass assault by Hamas, a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organisation, and the dark shadow of yet another war that could well be in the making.

Perhaps the slight sense of distance from last Tuesday’s raid by the Delhi Police against Newsclick, an Indian news portal, those who run it, and several people who work for it, is an opportunity for a bit of retrospection. The raids created massive ripples all over, particularly in India but also across the world. A protest meeting was organised; megaphones were deployed; and parallels were drawn to a 21-month period during 1975-77 when India’s then Prime Minister, the late Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency, and when, among many other deplorably repressive acts, many Indian journalists were arrested; newsrooms were commandeered by government censors and free speech was muzzled.

Many, including at least one of the few editorials in big Indian newspapers that deplored the raids, have called the police action an “undeclared emergency”, and lamented that it is an act of vendetta and unbridled harassment. Other, more shrill voices cried that it was yet another blow to freedom of expression, in particular, freedom of the Indian media, and an attempt by the government to silence journalists that are critical of the government.

The Newsclick raids were probably triggered by charges that the organisation may have received financing from an international pro-China investment group, which allegedly has questionable motives. Whether Newsclick received funds from that group or whether its activities were influenced by it are questions that have been raised and the Indian authorities have been investigating these. The raids were a part of that probe.

If pro-China organisations have infiltrated the Indian media and are influencing editorial policies that could conceivably be anti-India, it is a matter of great concern. It should not be anybody’s case that the media ought to be non-critical of or subservient to a country’s government. It definitely should because that is the role of the media: of holding a mirror to the face of power. And if the media in India are constrained from freedom of expression by those in power that is deplorable and unacceptable.

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What if there are instances where anti-government sentiments or editorial strategies are fuelled by pro- Chinese propaganda? Can that not be an attack on a country’s sovereignty? If Russia, say, influences a US media outlet by financing it and nudging its editorial policy, would the US authorities think it is all hunky dory in the celebration of freedom of expression? These are the sort of issues that those who wielded microphones to shrilly denounce the police action against Newclick should ponder.

There are two other issues, apparently related to this, but really they should be viewed separately.

The first concerns the raids themselves. Swarms of policemen arriving at the homes of dozens of journalists, including consultants, freelancers, and rookie journalists who worked for the news outlet and had little or nothing to do with its finances or how it was run is like deploying a nuclear missile to kill a mosquito. It is nothing less than pointless harassment and show of power, ostensibly aimed at scaring innocent individuals.

In the end, the police arrested two individuals–the top executive who owns and runs the organisation and one of his senior aides. Both of them have been detained under a law aimed at preventing unlawful activities, and it is believed investigations are continuing. If the authorities intended to investigate Newsclick’s funding, they ought to have done just that instead of coming down like a bulldozer against people who might have been no more than inconsequential cogs in the machine.

The second thing that the incident has led to is the focus on how constrained or not the Indian media is. The thing is that a considerable amount of that constraint is self imposed. Those who work as big fish in large Indian media houses would never publicly admit it but anyone with average intelligence knows that much of India’s largest media groups fight shy of criticising the regime in power, its policies, and actions. Some of those who run newsrooms in such groups may personally have views that are not supportive of many of those things but rarely do they make those views public via the media that they run or the content that they create for their audiences.

It is speculated that some of this happens because of tacit, “invisible” and unspoken influences that a ruling regime may wield. In some instances, it could come in the form of simple economics–a dependence on the government and its institutions to provide advertising revenues; in other cases, it could in the form of coteries that are formed when interests of business groups that run media groups intertwine with or are dependent on government policies; in yet other cases, it could be common political interests between those in power and those who run media.

The recent raids and the furore over them have swung the focus on these two things: recurring instances of highhandedness by the enforcement authorities; and the benign willingness of many media groups not to ruffle the feathers of those who wield power. Both are deplorable and undesirable.

Independent Journalists Explains NDTV Deal

Change In Ownership Hardly Impacts A Media Group’s Core Ethics

By LokMarg

Arun Singh, a Lucknow-based independent journalist, transfer of partial holdings in NDTV poses no threat to the channel or its journalists if they act as professionals

The recent brouhaha over Gautam Adani making a hostile bid to take over NDTV and thereby undermining media freedom, appears a little overplayed. I would call it premature over-reaction. The matter is very simple: NDTV took a loan from the VCPL about a decade ago which it was not able to repay. Seeing some business advantage, the Adani group buys VCPL and gets its holding in NDTV as the new owner! That’s it!

Now if this takeover or the deal is being propagated as an attempt to stop the company and its journalists from carrying on with their ‘revolutionary’ journalism or to prevent them from criticizing the government, then it is laughable.

By and large, the media in the country can broadly be distinguished under two categories: First, those who sell themselves (nowadays termed as ‘Godi Media’) and those who sell news (the term for them is ‘anti-establishment media’). Most media houses are owned by private business groups or, in a few cases, by political parties. The top leadership frames a set of rules and the workforce, in this case journalists, follow these.

For any professional media group to prosper, it is necessary they present news and facts on the basis of the core principles of journalism. Else, they are likely to fall into one of the two categories mentioned above. To my mind, while it is unprofessional to present only the good works of the Government of the day to curry benefits, it is also questionable to report only the negatives of a ‘strong’ and democratically elected government. Your credentials will be in question if you follow a set, premeditated agenda in presentation of news.

ALSO READ: The Reason Why Indian Media Is ‘Pliable’

A professional journalist will never compromise with ethics. And if a journalist is not comfortable with a group’s policy or structure, he or she has the option to look for work opportunities elsewhere. In any case, change of ownership has hardly ever changed a company’s policy dramatically. The clientele and viewership, as the market forces for corporate world, decide how a media group moves forward as a credible news supplier.

As far as this deal is concerned, it is not at all going to hamper anyone’s bread and butter or revolutionize journalism to the next level. I repeat, it is just another deal between two corporate houses and if one thinks (like it has been propagated on social media about freedom) that journalists will not be able to carry on with their distinct line of thought, one is fooling oneself.

As told to Rajat Rai

Pegasus and Beyond: Press Freedom at Stake

By Chahat Awasthi

As a rogue religious fanatic stood outside Jamia Milia Islamia, gun pointed towards students, a Danish Siddiqui stood in his direct range to get the perfect shot. He wanted to document a story from the point closest to action. He told the Guardian once, “I shoot for the common man who wants to see and feel a story from a place where he can’t be present himself.”

Siddiqui is not alone. Often in crisis situations when the world runs away from a threat, journalists run towards it. Such madness. Such risks. Such passion. Consequently, when some don’t live to tell their stories, others take up their cause.

However, in the recent years a pattern has been observed – a rise in right-wing populist nationalism across the globe and an increase in intolerance towards freedom of speech and expression.

The last decade, in particular, has been chilling for the profession. In 2018, Jamal Khashoggi went to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, to never come out. Prince Mohammed Bin Salman told Bloomberg News that Khashoggi had left. It can safely be said that Khashoggi’s wife, who was waiting for him right outside, would disagree.

Allegedly, the currently infamous Pegasus spyware had a role to play. NSO (the company that owns the spyware) denies its use even as it says it doesn’t keep a list of targets – current and potential. How does one wrap their head around such conflicting statements?

Worldwide, 937 journalists have been killed in ten years. About 50 were killed in 2020 and 54 held as hostage in the same year. Some are missing. While journalists have been killed in cold blood, arrested for speaking out inconvenient truths and spied upon for decades now (maybe since the start of the trade), let’s not for one second feel that it is a normal order of the world – whatever it is that we are seeing right now, a lot of which is coming from conservative/right-wing populist and hyper-nationalist countries.

In Singapore, as the conservative centre-right party continues to rule, the “Switzerland of the East” has been painted black on the map of World Press Freedom Index. Journalists are sued left, right and centre and defamation suits are the order of the day. The cherry on the cake? Citizen Lab, the academic research lab that focuses on global security, human rights and communication technologies, found Pegasus infections here.

ALSO READ: Pegasus, What’s New About It!

The international organization protecting the right to freedom of information, Reporters Without Borders, says that this city-state is not far-off from China when it comes to suppression of Press. Self-censorship prevails and government decides what is incorrect in News. Words like democracy, press freedom, independence come to mind but not in a positive way.

Moving on. The United Kingdom, currently governed by the Conservative party, is considering changes to the Official Secrets Act of 1989 that could lead journalists reporting on matters that embarrass the government to be imprisoned for up to 14 years.  

Now, some would say that the core of journalism hinges on holding the government to account. The Home Office told the National that reporters would remain free to do so but it’s not yet clear how. The National Union of Journalists has responded with a staunch opposition, some calling it “actual fascism”.

But fascism comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it looks like a friend. Technology, for instance, has created immense sophistication in our lives. There is so much to be thankful for. But some of it is operating on legal and ethical boundaries of personal freedom and private lives and some of it has crossed those boundaries. Pegasus belongs to the latter category.

After the Pegasus scandal erupted, BBC reported that about 50 countries could be clients to NSO, the firm behind the spyware that can collect some of the most personal and private information of people it snoops upon.

It’s critical here to understand that its commonness does not make it ok for it to be used world over. It should become more alarming. The fact that there is a community killed, mutilated, and treated as dispensable and that it has been handling spyware attacks at the same time because it is so common is not ok. What’s needed is support for it to thrive and not vile programs used by vile governments for vile purposes.

This very community in its varied image (good, bad, and ugly) is a major pillar of any democracy. Snooping, especially, at the level that the Pegasus operates on – the excessive and unaccountable surveillance – is antithetical to the essence of democracy and to the spirit of journalism.

While some governments can use surveillance for national security, at one point it must show prosecutions that show actual breach of this security or an attempt to justify such action. It cannot be a “snoop till eternity and without any basis”.

ALSO READ: Press Freedom In India Is A Myth

However, in India, the Pegasus scandal does not exist in a vacuum. There is a context to overall downgrading of press freedom. In 2020, India had slipped nine points in the press freedom index from 133 in 2016. That’s nine points in four years. Among 180 countries, we now stand at 142.

Our close neighbour Pakistan, which is ruled by a “centrist”, Islamist and populist party, ranks 145. It is also in the list of countries where infections associated with Pegasus operators have been found.

In India, though, the blow on this fourth pillar of democracy and subsequent fall in press freedom ranking is not in a vacuum. The assault on democracy has been duly noted and in the annual democracy index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2020, India slipped two places down.

What looks like a mere journalism problem to the world right now might be a bigger democratic problem and now would be a good time to focus on this deepening crisis of freedom of speech, overreach of power and sustained assault on a major institution defining some of the most influential global powers.

At home, we need the fix the Pegasus issue. Our government must come clean. Did they buy Pegasus? Did they use it? Yes or no, with or without proper authorization? It is confusing for the common man to understand why a government would not do it already but give logically erroneous responses like other countries do it too, it’s an attempt to derail the data protection bill (oddly!), and how our surveillance is never illegal (help us believe it?).

To wrap up, the list of countries with populist governments leaning to the right and allegedly using Pegasus is not as short as some would like. The declining press freedom in most of these nations is concerning. The relationship needs to be examined. But, before we root for an Orwellian world, knowing what’s at stake might only be proper. 1984, anyone?