Never before in the history of Indian journalism spanning over 150 years have responsible, fair-minded and non-partisan journalists faced the kind of dilemma they do these days. Hardly a day passes when a well-known public figure does not make an unsubstantiated charge against other public figures, especially the Prime Minister and his aides. This is grist to the mills of those newspapers and journalists who have decided to do all in their power to overthrow the government, or at least make it difficult for the ruling party and its leader, Mr Rajiv Gandhi, to get re-elected whenever the elections to the Lok Sabha are held. And it presents no problem to those few newspapers which are committed to Mr Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress party. They can and do ignore the charges. But what do non-committed newspapers and journalists do? Withhold publication of those charges? Play them down? The first option is in reality not open to them. For, it invites the charge of suppression, as this newspaper did when it decided not to publish Mr Ram Jethmalani’s insinuatory questions to the Prime Minister day after day in 1987. This is also a risky proposition for it can create the impression among the readers that the newspaper is being deliberately partisan when in fact it is being careful. The second proposition is an exercise in escapism. To publicize an unsubstantiated charge in however muted a form is to help promote unjustly the atmosphere of distrust which cannot surely be the role of a responsible newspaper. Finally, how is a journalist to decide whether an unsubstantiated charge is also going to turn out to be false?
It is not that unsubstantiated charges are not made by members of the ruling party. They are. So many have been made against Mr VP Singh in the last 20 months. But opposition leaders, including Mr VP Singh, have taken the lead in this regard. This has brought down the level of public discourse and vitiated the atmosphere to such an extent that a meaningful and sober discussion of problems facing the country has become virtually impossible. But this is not the issue under discussion right now. We are concerned with the problem non-partisan journalists face in the discharge of their obligation to keep the reader informed. Contrary to the widespread impression based on an unthinking and endless repetition of slogans, information is not a harmless and neutral activity. Newspapers cannot and do not report everything that happens in the world. They report selectively, that is they report what they regard ‘newsworthy.’ Implicit in this selectivity is an endorsement of a kind, though not of a direct and explicit kind. Thus in the very process of publicizing a charge we give it not just currency but also a measure of credibility. This is galling for journalists who do not belong to the ‘publish and be damned’ school which the Americans above all have popularized. But they are helpless. There is nothing they can do to remedy the situation except at grave risk to themselves which understandably not many are prepared to take.
A responsible and professionally competent journalist can detect a plant and avoid getting used, though it too is not easy in a highly competitive profession in which leaks do give an advantage. But the institution of the press conferences poses another kind of problem. The one addressed by Mr Ram Jethmalani last Sunday illustrates the point we wish to make. Mr Jethmalani released some documents which he had forwarded to the CBI in connection with the Bofors payoff scandal. He himself was not sure whether these documents in fact established any kind of link between Svenska, one of the three companies which have been recipients of the payoffs, and the Maruti Technical Services which at one time was headed by Mrs Sonia Gandhi. Indeed, he had forwarded them to the CBI so that it could determine whether there was any such link. But he decided to publicize them and thereby to insinuate that indeed there was such a link. A careful look at the documents cannot leave any sensible person in doubt that Mr Jethmalani stretched his case to the breaking point. A lady served in a company in a minor capacity in 1975 when that company probably did some business with the MTS and then possibly shifted to Svenska (Mr Jethmalani was not sure whether it is the same lady who is currently vice-president of Svenska.). But even if Mr Jethmalani’s suggestion is taken at its face value, how does it establish a link? It does not. But do we report the press conference or not? Those who have endlessly assigned the nation’s conscience-keeper’s role to the press should debate this question as well.