Journalism sans frontiers

But a closer look reveals the true purpose: these high-minded aims are assumed to be the objective of the speaking leaders and the real role of journalists is to strengthen their hand by urging the people to support them. Behind their beautiful verbiage is the design to recruit journalists to become their dream beaters and latter day version of town criers proclaiming their goodness in power. Appeals to patriotism, Islam, ideology, national chauvinism are deployed to make journalists ignore the voice of their conscience and to support the politicians in office -- and occasionally some in opposition.

One is tired of saying to anyone who would care to listen that journalists have no, repeat no, role in achieving any of the seemingly noble causes. This is for moralists, social reformers, religious and political leaders to popularise their own nostrums.

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Journalists' only duty is to be professionally honest and efficient. Just that. You have a right to query what is the moral or professional duty of a journalist: can he be amoral or immoral? No, not at all. As an honest professional, he has to be guided all the time by his own conscience as a good professional. And what is the journalistic professional's main duty? Well, simple: to report fairly and objectively and when he is required to comment, he should piece together the reality from a plethora of reports with varying degrees of objectivity and to make a fair and honest comment thereon according to his lights (conscience).

Journalism is intended to reflect the real situation. Truth telling is the norm for an honest professional. As an individual he has many feelings and perhaps loyalties. He may want to work for social welfare or to promote good public morals. But let him do these things as an individual. Insofar as he is a journalist, the value to guide professional work is to report factually and or make a fair comment on an objectively delineated situation. His personal enthusiasm for religion or morality has to be kept separate from his professional duty of seeking facts and fair comment thereon. He or she may be interested in promoting micro credit for poverty alleviation. Let him engage in it in his or her spare time; he or she cannot become a propagandist of this or that NGO or institution (including the government).

If the criterion of truth telling, with all its implications, is accepted, then the huge and difficult issue of patriotism can be tackled. It is specially acute in Pakistan and India where big modern propaganda machines, information ministries with huge budgets, are overactive. Their raison d'etre is to put a desired spin on facts; they spread part truth and part propaganda all the time, when they are not spawning actual disinformation. Has anyone looked into these ministries' and myriad provincial departments', and of nearly all big public sector enterprises, budgets? On what is all this big money spent? Who is the intended beneficiary, leaving aside the sustenance of bureaucracy? Much of it is spent on 'cultivating' reporters and columnists. Some do informally become 'embedded', thus violating professional ethics.

There are great and praiseworthy international organisations of journalists. There is the Paris-based RSF (reporters sans frontiers). It clearly aims at what one has essayed to convey. There is the New York based Committee on the Protection of Journalists, the coverage of which is global. There is the International Press Institute. Other organisations also exist. There is one that has been established in South Asia of and for South Asian journalists. One has attended all three of its annual conferences and a pleasing experience they were.

Let no one run away with the notion that South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) has come of age or that its impact has improved things. Situation of the media, especially electronic, in this region, --- which nature has designed as a distinctive region -- is unspeakable. As a result of sharp differences, military tensions among the states of the region and veritable civil wars in some states, electronic media on the whole, and in many cases the press also, has enthusiastically participated in the politics of whichever was their government. Their presentation of the situation pleased their ruling elites. That situation largely persists.

This has to be purposefully noted -- not to discredit the fledgling SAFMA but to underscore what it is up against. One just reported that the third annual conference in Dhaka was a pleasant experience. The professional bon homie among the journalists of the five main South Asian nations was wonderful; their readiness for professional correctness was obvious. Not that there were no differences among them that gave intimation of proximity to that of their respective government's or other partisan, line. Let it be said that the Pakistani squad was more confirmist with many notable exceptions than any other group. While there were many who wanted to be more critical in describing the national situation, there were a few 'heavy weights' who prevailed for the sake of good humoured unanimity. Apparently they were weighed down by their perceived national responsibilities. One wondered why a national consensus was required in an international professional organisation; simple majority view ought to prevail everywhere.

God knows that India and Pakistan, or the two warring sides in Sri Lanka or Nepal, need to be brought closer to each other and, if possible, enabled to make them friends. This is a noble aim. But it is not for SAFMA to achieve. Insofar as India and Pakistan enmity is concerned, it is for other organisations like Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy or Pakistan Peace Coalition to try to reconcile them. SAFMA ought be a journalists' professional organisation where they should merely compare notes over the media's situation and problems faced in each country of the region. If this process produces some beneficial fallout or byproduct, well it is welcome. That will be a byproduct or side benefit. SAFMA needs to concern itself only with professional matters, especially professional ethics.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.