09-09-2007, 03:04 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Stinging shame </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
TV news is becoming a sick joke
The revelation that the 'sting operation' conducted by Live India (the channel formerly known as Janmat) against a Delhi school teacher to show her as running a prostitution racket was a hoax and a frame-up represents an act of infamy without parallel in Indian media. Not only did the channel fail to conduct due diligence before telecasting the 'story', it justified its fecklessness and refused to take the blame for the rioting that took place in the school's vicinity in Delhi's Daryaganj area, by claiming it had done its job by informing the police. The channel and its editor, not to speak of its criminal news gatherers, deserve exemplary punishment. They are a shame on the profession of journalism. That aside, the <b>over-enthusiastic and limelight-hungry Mr Aravinder Singh Lovely, Delhi's Minister for Education, should be penalised. At the very least, he needs to be censured and ordered to tender a public apology to the victimised teacher, Ms Uma Khurana. Mr Lovely immediately and instantly rushed to television cameras and microphones and announced the teacher's dismissal from service. He did not wait for a departmental inquiry or a conviction; he did not offer to suspend her pending a definitive investigation. He merrily issued a firman and made his behaviour even more unpardonable by personally attacking Ms Khurana and questioning her character.</b> It now appears that the teacher was done in by a conspiracy hatched by a low-life individual masquerading as a reporter and an equally malevolent creditor to whom Ms Khurana owed some money. In fact, the monetary transaction being discussed on the so-called 'sting' tape concerns the debt.
For the media, the fictional sting operation climaxes a period of very damaging events. Recently, Zee News was hauled up by the courts for showing images of Ms Monica Bedi having a bath in a Bhopal prison. Where was the public interest in this clipping? Did it not amount to a severe infringement of an individual's right to privacy and even, really, a citizen's fundamental rights? In any other democracy with an efficacious legal and grievance redressal system, Ms Bedi and Ms Khurana could have sued the two channels and taken their proprietors to the cleaners. It is time India's television news industry resorts to some serious introspection. Hiring wide-eyed bounty-hunters with no enlightened idea of journalism as a calling; giving rookies access to a powerful tool such as mass media without adequate training, without setting up a system of checks and balances and informed gatekeepers; reducing revenue generation to, in some cases, blatant blackmail; outsourcing news 'creation' (literally!) and buying 'sting stories' from professional voyeurs and purveyors of sleaze - is this the future of India's news media? A backlash against the news channel industry has been building up. The fake sting may just be the inflection point. If the Government steps in with a harsh code, news channel heads may find that middle class viewers are not with them. Unless this incident serves as a wake-up call, news television, in its desperation to grab eyeballs, will find its credibility on a downward spiral.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Pioneer Edit Desk
TV news is becoming a sick joke
The revelation that the 'sting operation' conducted by Live India (the channel formerly known as Janmat) against a Delhi school teacher to show her as running a prostitution racket was a hoax and a frame-up represents an act of infamy without parallel in Indian media. Not only did the channel fail to conduct due diligence before telecasting the 'story', it justified its fecklessness and refused to take the blame for the rioting that took place in the school's vicinity in Delhi's Daryaganj area, by claiming it had done its job by informing the police. The channel and its editor, not to speak of its criminal news gatherers, deserve exemplary punishment. They are a shame on the profession of journalism. That aside, the <b>over-enthusiastic and limelight-hungry Mr Aravinder Singh Lovely, Delhi's Minister for Education, should be penalised. At the very least, he needs to be censured and ordered to tender a public apology to the victimised teacher, Ms Uma Khurana. Mr Lovely immediately and instantly rushed to television cameras and microphones and announced the teacher's dismissal from service. He did not wait for a departmental inquiry or a conviction; he did not offer to suspend her pending a definitive investigation. He merrily issued a firman and made his behaviour even more unpardonable by personally attacking Ms Khurana and questioning her character.</b> It now appears that the teacher was done in by a conspiracy hatched by a low-life individual masquerading as a reporter and an equally malevolent creditor to whom Ms Khurana owed some money. In fact, the monetary transaction being discussed on the so-called 'sting' tape concerns the debt.
For the media, the fictional sting operation climaxes a period of very damaging events. Recently, Zee News was hauled up by the courts for showing images of Ms Monica Bedi having a bath in a Bhopal prison. Where was the public interest in this clipping? Did it not amount to a severe infringement of an individual's right to privacy and even, really, a citizen's fundamental rights? In any other democracy with an efficacious legal and grievance redressal system, Ms Bedi and Ms Khurana could have sued the two channels and taken their proprietors to the cleaners. It is time India's television news industry resorts to some serious introspection. Hiring wide-eyed bounty-hunters with no enlightened idea of journalism as a calling; giving rookies access to a powerful tool such as mass media without adequate training, without setting up a system of checks and balances and informed gatekeepers; reducing revenue generation to, in some cases, blatant blackmail; outsourcing news 'creation' (literally!) and buying 'sting stories' from professional voyeurs and purveyors of sleaze - is this the future of India's news media? A backlash against the news channel industry has been building up. The fake sting may just be the inflection point. If the Government steps in with a harsh code, news channel heads may find that middle class viewers are not with them. Unless this incident serves as a wake-up call, news television, in its desperation to grab eyeballs, will find its credibility on a downward spiral.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->