Media must set trend for lawful protests

It is becoming a trend of sorts. In the last four months we have had four instances of public display of protest. What is unusual about this development is in each of theses cases footwear has been hurled at prominent dignitaries and in two of the four cases involved people from the media.

The first instance took place on December 14, 2008. Muntazar al-Zaidi, an Iraqui journalist for an Egyptian newspaper hurled both his shoes at no less a leader than the then US President, George W. Bush for his alleged attempts to destroy Iraq. Then on February 2, 2009 a 27-year old unnamed person threw his shoe at Chinese premier, Ben Jiabo while the latter was lecturing at Cambridge University.

The third instance happened in India at New Delhi on April 7. Jarnail Singh, a correspondent of Dainik Jagran protested through similar manner at the press conference of Home Minister, P. Chidambaram. His reasons? As a Sikh he was upset, along with scores of Sikh brethren, at CBI giving a clean chit to Jagadeesh Tytler and Sajjan Kumar who allegedly had a hand in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The most recent case of shoe-throwing took place on April 10. A retired schoolteacher hurled a shoe at Congress MP Naveen Jindal while he was campaigning at a rally in Kurukshetra constituency.

While the first two shoe-throwers have been detained and cases filed against them, the latter two have been lucky in this election year to go without any case.

While the validity of the issues for which these people have been protesting is unquestionable, it is the manner in which they have chosen to protest that raises serious questions. It is true that Iraq war, anti-Sikh riots etc. were no minor issues. It is also true that prominent leaders were involved in those mayhem. Despite all that, one cannot indulge in unacceptable protests. It is sad that two cases involved media persons. Media, by definition, cannot resort to raking up passions while reporting. They are called to be objective as far as possible. If this is true, then those taking up the task of reporting have to work against their personal issues and see the larger good of society. Otherwise, they are unfit to be journalists. It amounts to journalists too becoming communal and partisan which will be an unfortunate development. What these journalists will do, without their awareness, is that they will only bring disrepute to their profession and to the whole media fraternity. Media must set trend for lawful protests.

The election time is a challenging time for the media. Newspapers and TV channels can overtly display their support or hatred to certain parties. But if they are to be faithful their profession, media have to watch out and be critical of issues rather than show clandestine support or disregard to any party. Not many media institutions, sadly, succeed in this regard. Fairness would mean, as somebody has rightly said, among other things, “listening to different viewpoints, and incorporating them into journalism.” If objectivity is a hard thing, media persons could at least be fair while reporting and making analysis which is crucial during an election.