Four and forward (TheHoot.Org. 16/04/05)

The Hoot's job will be incomplete without a reporting contingent that will investigate and expose what the mainstream media are shy of disclosing.

-- By Dasu Krishnamoorty

Three years ago, I had opened my account with The Hoot with an article on coverage of the communal conflict in Gujarat, not expecting to be published. By current definition, it was not 'secular' in its flavour and questioned the methods used by the English media in arriving at conclusions. Its publication the next day rekindled my faith in alternative media. Later, I wrote several articles full of innuendo against editors of some English dailies and their contribution to communal 'harmony' in the country. Despite some reservation, The Hoot carried them. This is the most important ingredient of the definition of alternative media, that is, to provide voice to every viewpoint, regardless of disagreement.  Some of my articles came back, certainly not because they clashed with The Hoot philosophy. I am very happy that The Hoot has turned four and that we have been friends for three years. Think of having an owl as a friend!

In an environment fouled exclusively by profit motive and the desire to be on the right side, to think of launching as unpopular a project as alternative media and turning enemies into friends itself is good news. Sometime ago, in response to an Ammu Joseph article, I had tried to briefly state what in my view makes alternative media. But we also need to know why we need alternative media. Let me quote my favourite author Noam Chomsky and his collaborator Ed Herman who say, "Because media is firmly imbedded in the market system, it reflects the class values and concerns of its owners and advertisers." According to them, the media maintain a corporate class bias through five systemic filters: concentrated private ownership; a strict bottom-line profit orientation; over-reliance on governmental and corporate sources for news; a primary tendency to avoid offending the powerful; and an almost religious worship of the market economy, devaluing alternative beliefs."

With a significant stake in globalization, media tend to overlook the excesses of the market and the flourishing coalition between the market and the state. The more media are sucked into the corporate orbit, the less the chances for viewpoints and perspectives that clash with corporate objectives. Since corporate reach embraces almost every area of public life, from culture to environment to health etc., there is hardly any space to reflect Diversity of perspectives.

Alternative media alone can illumine areas of darkness crying for light. Most newspapers hardly care to send their reporters to vast constituencies hostage to problems our politicians and media have glossed over for more than half a century and most reporters are unwilling to do such unglamorous assignments. The result is to keep the majority of the people outside the corridors of decision-making. The poor and the wretched of this earth hardly have the means to keep the freebie-mad corps of journalists in good humor and for that reason forfeit their right to be heard. Yes, theoretically we have a constitution and a score of fundamental rights. But the cost of exercising them is beyond more than half of the population of this country. In the event, a powerful minority of politicians and their collaborators in the market-owned media rules the country and the complaints of the underprivileged forever remain unnoticed because of self-censorship.

Here, I want to reinforce a few points The Hoot editor has made on its fourth birthday. Some media in the print sector appropriate the alternative label just because they represent the Left viewpoint. As Michael Albert of Z Magazine says, "Being alternative as an institution certainly isn't just being left or right or different in editorial content." That, I am afraid, is not the hallmark of alternative media. Also, the pretenders are selectively alternative. Unless your viewpoint fits into their limited framework, it has little chance of acceptance. For example, I have tried to show what contributes to the hardening of attitudes of both the major religious communities in the country towards communal harmony. I had to begin with several riders and affidavits proclaiming my 'secular' credentials. Everyone, except The Tribune , rejected the article. This happens to hundreds of contributors who have something worthwhile to say on matters of life and death for the voiceless. Repeatedly, one can see in the Indian print media the same writers and columnists presenting an elitist view of the problems facing the hoi polloi.

I know this charge will hurt some magazines and newspapers that consider themselves as alternative media. N. Ram, editor-in-chief of The Hindu, has been in the forefront of redefining journalism. That is good news. Its news pages are models of objective reporting though objectivity itself may need redefinition in the context of gate keeping done at the bureaus, the entry point, and the desk, the exit point. But edit page is where different ideas clash for public approval and evaluation. Here, the kind of plurality the reader expects is hardly evident in most newspapers calling themselves mainstream. The Indian reader is too poor to buy more than one newspaper and compare. If he does it, he will find that the number of people who have access to the edit page, is extremely limited. First, it is full of its own senior staff writing on prescribed days of the week following prescribed guidelines. Second, the others, some research will show, are the editor's campus or club buddies.

In a recent interview on the ZNET, Chomsky offered an example of the exclusion of other critics: "To give one example, when Nicaragua was a big issue, the leading academic historian on Nicaragua, Thomas Walker, regularly (several times a year) wrote and sent opeds to The New York Times ; not a single one was published. He just sent another one after this outrageous government-media propaganda ploy about how the elections in El Salvador were a model for Iraq. They wouldn't touch it. They have a party line. You're not allowed to deviate from it. It's not followed with 100 percent rigidity, of course, but it's pretty substantial. And, yes, there is virtual terror at the idea that anyone might deviate."

The Hoot has referred to self-censorship. The problem with it is the need to prove it. Instructions to the bureau and the desk and also the editorial writers on topics that are taboo, on personalities who are persona non grata and on who are on the right side and who on the wrong are never written or printed. No reader has an insight into what happens in the elegant interiors of big newspapers. Why did an editor leave a newspaper or was he sacked? What evidence did raids on newspapers throw up? Who is to tell us? There are scandals involving politicians, industrialists, bureaucrats, doctors, engineers, NGOs and others. We hardly hear of any misdeeds in newspaper offices. Few media men like Pradeep Magazine write about journalists:

"I also realized that we in the profession are no saints. Everyone knows that a party in journalistic circles is generally a euphemism for a get-together arranged by officials to wine and dine reporters and keep them in good humour with expensive presents." What money changes hands in panchayat elections is peanuts compared to what bonanzas media owners wrest from political parties in return for support at the time of general elections. Corruption in newspaper offices in the cause of the corporate sector will come to light only through the good offices of a whistle blower or a rival. But who is to publish them? Alternative media.

At the end, let me repeat the questions The Hoot has raised in a celebratory mood: How seriously should a media watch site take itself? Should it dissect mainstream media output zealously for biases? Should it try to get to the bottom of every media hoax? Should it be a determined killjoy, griping regularly about the insensitivity of the reader-led press in a poor country? Should it hound every greedy journalist looking for a free ride? Should it point fingers at fellow scribes, including self-promoting editors? There is no alternative to answering all these questions except in the affirmative, nay, assertive. The Hoot , as a model alternative media, is hosting a variety of viewpoints mainly critical of the mainstream media. This is a wonderful job that will be incomplete without a reporting contingent that will investigate and bring out what the mainstream media are shy of disclosing. With the kind of resources available with The Hoot , this may not be possible in the immediate future.

I venture to suggest a former Soviet media model that democratized to a larger extent the communication process by appointing voluntary correspondents. These correspondents were free to expose corruption in public office. The only limitation was that such exercises should not shake the people's faith in the primacy of the communist manifesto. Throughout the country, there will be hundreds of enthusiasts ready to do the job for The Hoot for no payment. Inside mainstream media offices, one can find scores of journalists who are victims of editors' or owners' whims and fancies and who are too willing to spill the beans. How to scout for them and how to test them for honesty and reliability are not intractable issues.