The Hindu : Front Page : Balancing freedom and social responsibility

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Monday, Oct 23, 2006
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Balancing freedom and social responsibility

S. Nagesh Kumar

`Judicial interpretation a key determinant of the strength of press freedom and a great contribution to democracy'

Photo: Satish H.

N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu , arriving with the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, G.S. Singhvi, to deliver the A.P. High Court Golden Jubilee Commemoration lecture on `Freedom and Accountability' in Hyderabad on Sunday.

HYDERABAD: The Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu , N. Ram, said here on Saturday that the creative and progressive interpretation by the higher judiciary of Article 19 (1) (A) of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and expression, was a key and perhaps the leading determinant of India's enviable position among developing countries in the matter of press freedom.

While there was still some way to go before catching up with developed countries, he observed, the role the judiciary played in protecting press freedom, establishing it on strong ground, and even giving it a special place in the constitutional scheme was a tremendous contribution to democracy. Other key determinants of the strength of press freedom in India were the active participation of significant sections of the press in the freedom struggle, the experience of fighting a battery of anti-press laws instituted by the British Raj, and the unusually liberal attitude of independent India's first rulers, notably Jawaharlal Nehru who showed a commendable appreciation of the value of a free and independent press.

Emergency experience

The "one major exception to such generalisations," Mr. Ram noted, came during the Emergency of 1975-77. When democratic freedoms and fundamental rights came under unprecedented attack, when censorship was slapped down on the press, and when journalists were arbitrarily detained along with political leaders and a large number of activists, the response of the press, barring a few exceptions, was "very poor" and "the failure of the higher judiciary to protect the democratic rights of the Indian people" was equally disappointing. However, if in that particular crisis "both our institutions did not measure up to expectations, it was a valuable learning experience and I don't think anything like that could happen again."

Mr. Ram was delivering the fourth commemorative lecture at the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh on "Freedom & Accountability: The Media in relation to the Judiciary." The lecture, organised on Diwali day by the High Court and the Andhra Pradesh High Court Advocates' Association, was attended by Chief Justice G.S. Singhvi, other judges of the High Court, retired Supreme Court judges, members of the subordinate judiciary, lawyers, law students, administrators, and members of the public.

Three concerns

Mr. Ram, however, identified three areas of concern for press freedom in India — the outmoded and illiberal law of criminal defamation, the use of contempt of court powers by some courts and some judges in a manner that suggested intolerance, and the misuse of privileges and contempt powers claimed by some legislatures. Advocating immediate de-criminalisation of the law of defamation, he quoted Rajeev Dhavan as saying "the process was the punishment." The Supreme Court, he recalled, had constituted a Constitution Bench on a petition filed by The Hindu challenging Sections 499 & 500 of the Indian Penal Code; and another Constitution Bench to hear the newspaper's challenge of sky-high privileges claimed by legislatures to punish journalists and citizens for critical writings about the legislatures or their members.

Contempt of court

Mr. Ram quoted a paper titled "The Boundaries of Press Freedom: Some Issues" given by N. Ravi, Editor, The Hindu at a colloquium organised by the Media Development Foundation as pointing out that "the Indian law of contempt of court is perhaps the most restrictive among the constitutional democracies" and also that there is a "built in unfairness in a contempt case where the court acts as judge, jury and hangman rolled into one, and judges are judging their own cause." He regretted that their frequent use had exposed intolerance among certain sections of the judiciary. However, he appreciated the just relief journalists, including The Hindu 's journalists in 2003, have got from the higher judiciary whenever they encountered high-handedness from legislatures. Mr. Ram added that when someone close to Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-Chief of CNN-IBN, who the Uttar Pradesh Assembly ordered the police to bring before it in a privilege case, asked him what needed to be done to protect this senior journalist, his simple advice based on The Hindu 's experience was "Just go to the Supreme Court!" As everyone knows, Mr. Ram pointed out, the immediate problem had been solved by the U.P. Government assuring the court that Mr. Sardesai would not be arrested and the journalist agreeing to go to the Assembly on his own, without any police escort of course.

Dynamic growth

Providing an overview of the Indian media, he said since they had become very big players, issues of freedom, accountability, and social responsibility had become more important than ever before. Media growth in India was buoyant and dynamic, contrasting with the difficult, even gloomy situation faced by newspapers and also broadcast television in "many mature media markets, that is in many developed countries." The World Association of Newspapers, in its latest survey, has put India's newspaper circulation, at 79 million, next only to China's, at 97 million; and then came Japan, the United States, and Germany. It has also pointed out that a stunning 70 per cent of the world's top circulated dailies are published in Asia. According to the National Readership Study 2006, daily newspapers in India had a combined readership of 204 million and broadcast television had an audience of nearly 450 million drawn from 112 million households. Estimates of the number of internet users in India vary from 13 million according to NRS 2006 to 35 million suggested by some surveys. But this was still a very low base for the Internet considering India's population and resources.

Internet impact

The point about these figures, Mr. Ram said, was that while newspaper circulation and readership were apparently in "inexorable, irreversible decline" in most developed countries as the younger generation had got used to getting whatever news it wanted free from the Internet, in India the low level of Internet penetration combined with the buoyancy and dynamism in the growth of newspapers and broadcast television channels provided the old media time and space to "avoid the mistakes made by newspapers and broadcast television in mature media markets and get the answers right." Quoting the British media guru, John Naughton, as saying that [in developed countries] the Internet was in the process of becoming "the dominant player in the media eco-system," displacing broadcast television, he said that such a process was nowhere in sight in India, with both newspapers and broadcast television being dominant in the media eco-system. He expressed confidence that all the media in India would continue to grow, adjusting to changing circumstances by learning lessons, positive as well as negative, from the developed countries.

`Incomplete freedom'

Citing an argument made in Mr. Ravi's paper about media freedom in India being "an incomplete freedom," Mr. Ram pointed out that it was unfortunate that the Article 19 freedom of speech and expression made available to a virtually privileged press through judicial interpretation was not available to the broadcast media, on account of arguments that are now clearly outmoded. As a newspaper journalist, he wanted the same degree of freedom to be available to television and radio. But the paradox of the Indian situation was that while terrestrial television and also radio (with the exception of FM radio, which was not allowed to do news and current affairs) continued to be a state monopoly, television broadcasts that came via satellite and cable were functioning with no broadcast law, no regulatory framework, and "no clear rules of the game," which contrasted with the situation of virtually all developed countries. Mr. Ram said a "liberal broadcast law and a liberal broadcast regulatory framework" were badly needed.

Negative trends

Mr. Ram spoke strongly in his lecture against the negative tendencies of sensationalism, tabloidisation, trivialisation, celebrity-worship, the unchecked use of hidden cameras, and so forth, in the Indian news media. Focussing on the absence of institutional mechanisms of self-regulation to give meaning to journalism's accountability and social responsibility, The Hindu 's Editor-in-Chief said this was "the real challenge before us," since harping on freedom without demonstrating accountability and social responsibility would weaken the position of the media in society.

He said that historically the Indian press had won its special place because of these positive roles it played, which he identified as "the credible-informational, the critical-investigative, the educational, and the agenda-building functions."

The Hindu had worked out for itself, over 128 years, "its Panchsheel for socially responsible and ethical journalism — the principles of truth telling, freedom and independence, justice, humaneness, and contribution to social good."

He said that there were several examples of good, serious investigative journalism by Indian newspapers but the recent practice chastised by the apex court of venal paparazzi sting operations, of freelance `journalists' going from one television broadcaster to another to sell their spy camera footage to the higher bidder, "must make the media hang down their heads in shame."

Self-regulation

Observing that the Press Council of India had become a weakened institution and newspapers did not take it seriously any more, Mr. Ram called for the formulation of a Code of Practice along the lines of the voluntary code drawn up by newspaper publishers and editors in the U.K. and enforced by the Press Complaints Commission. The U.K. Code of Practice laid down clear and specific rules of the game, among other things requiring newspapers and editors to give the affected party an opportunity to reply, prevent journalistic intrusion into grief, protect children against being interviewed without supervision, show great care in the coverage of hospitals, and prohibit the use of clandestine devices unless legitimate methods did not yield information and the public interest justified such use in exceptional cases.

Mr. Ram reminded the audience that in a recent panel discussion on NDTV's 24x 7, Prannoy Roy, Vinod Mehta, and he, representing different media sectors, had agreed that a Code of Practice specific to Indian conditions must be drafted as soon as possible and presented to the serious sections of the media for wider discussion and acceptance.

Readers' Editor

Mr. Ram recalled that The Hindu had, following The Guardian's exemplary model, introduced in March 2006 the institution of the Readers' Editor, an internal news ombudsman of independence and integrity, and that the institution was functioning excellently, with clear benefit to the newspaper and its readers; and that Rajasthan Patrika and Sakal had subsequently appointed their own readers' editors. Mr. Ram wanted other newspapers and media organisations to institute such self-corrective and self-regulating mechanisms and added that public pressure on the media to do this would help.

Justice T. Meena Kumari, Judge, A.P. High Court, welcomed the distinguished gathering. Justice Goda Raghuram introduced the speaker while the President of the A. P. High Court Advocates' Association, G. Vidyasagar, proposed a vote of thanks.

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