Juggling freedom and responsibility
Shahid Alam
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Richard Handwerk/ getty images |
THOMAS Jefferson, third president of the United States of America, in the process of commenting on his country's draft Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution that were collectively adopted on 15 December 1791), offered these profound thoughts: “The people shall not be deprived of their right to speak, to write or otherwise to publish anything but the false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty, property or reputation of others, or affecting the peace of the confederacy with foreign nations.” Amendment I duly took cognizance of his observation, and part of it reads: “Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press....” The significant aspect of Jefferson's comments, however, is his belief in tempering freedom with responsibility.
Richard Gunther and Anthony Mughan, while engaging in a fairly lengthy discourse on government regulation of the media in theory and practice, identify a core principle of media function, and functioning, in a liberal democracy: “Respect for, and guarantees of, freedom of the press have long been regarded as among the fundamental tenets of democracy since the unhindered flow of political information was recognized as integral to holding governments accountable for their (in)actions. Accordingly, governments were to interfere as little as possible with the free flow of information through the print media. Among the consequences of this hands-off approach was that newspapers could determine their own partisan stance, the level at which they would pitch their appeal, and the style and type of story that would constitute their hallmark” (Democracy and the Media: A Comparative Perspective). And, to theoretically underscore a primary axiom of democracy, as well as a basic human right, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Now let us segue from the realm of ideals and theory to the world of reality. While speaking at the national council of Bangladesh Sangbadik Samity as 2009 drew to a close, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury dwelt on some important issues in the context of freedom of the press. She believes that newspapers should publish the reasons behind the torture of journalists while reporting on the facts of their persecution. “It is not possible for readers to get the whole picture if a newspaper does not mention the reason behind the torture in its report,” she asserted. “Physical torture is not expected in any situation. But there should be scope for legal action against those who write false reports.” Her stricture takes us back to Jefferson's caution that freedom of expression has to be balanced with responsibility for ones written and verbal statements. It also brings to focus the issue of media ethics.
In keeping with many political systems, the Bangladesh Constitution also guarantees freedom of the press, among other rights:
Article 39 (1) Freedom of thought and conscience is guaranteed
(2) Subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interests of the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an office ---
(a) the right of every citizen to freedom of speech and expression; and
(b) freedom of the press,
are guaranteed.
Clause (2) contains caution against committing certain transgressions in the exercise of speech, expression and the press, splendid in theory, but oftentimes sadly falling short of the ideal in practice. In other words, to refer to Matia Chowdhury, allegations have persisted across a broad spectrum of this country's population that at least some of the media take recourse to yellow journalism (signifying use of lurid stories and sensational reporting with the sole aim of attracting readers and increasing circulation). They are talking about questionable journalistic ethics being practiced in the country. It brings to focus the constitutional right to freedom of expression and the limits to which it can be taken without transgressing into real, as well as perceived (from the aggrieved standpoint), flouting of ethical standards. And, of course, people would quibble about the very definition/characterization of “ethical standards”, and probably end up in agreeing to disagree in various degrees of intensity. In fact, John C. Merrill's research has found little opposition in most countries to having ethical codes. Interestingly, however, the US, Great Britain and Germany see no need for ethical codes because they would place restrictions on independent journalism (“Governments and Press Control: Global Attitudes on Journalistic Matters,” Political Communication and Persuasion 4 (1987) pp. 223-262).
Actually, the perception of ethical standards will not be uniform across nations and cultures, but a certain state of the mind regarding good taste and decency would be a good yardstick to judge ethical standard outside that of malicious intent, plain falsehood, vulgarity, and a gamut of other distasteful or palpably erroneous media presentation. Some would be tempted to include partisan political journalism in the same category, but, unless it is of a patently virulent variety with a no-holds-barred approach to unfairly malign parties and functionaries of opposing or differing political persuasion, an editorial policy of following a particular political viewpoint is not unhealthy for a country's democratic process. As discerning scholars of political communication like Brian McNair and others have persuasively argued, it is to be encouraged, although the compelling reasons they advance fall outside the purview of this write-up. The delicate balancing act, one that should reinforce ethical journalism, would be to promote ones political preference without making it out to be sacrosanct, and, more importantly, without irrationally denigrating the opposing viewpoint as a matter of course.
The problem with maintaining ethical standard in Bangladeshi journalism is that at least a section of it falls into the trap of virulent political partisanship that results every so often in unseemly biased reporting against parties, functionaries and viewpoints opposed to ones own, thereby rubbing those belittled the wrong way. Part of the reason for physical attacks on journalists that Matia Chowdhury was talking about can be traced to this very phenomenon. There is a popular conception (or, is it misconception?), frequently propagated by whichever government is in power, especially during the almost twenty-year stretch of largely uninterrupted parliamentary democracy, that the press in Bangladesh is totally free, and that journalists are usually free to air their views in print. And, yet, Freedom of the Press 2009 ranks Bangladesh (jointly with Liberia) at number 138 (out of 195 countries), and assesses the status of the press as not being free. Thus, although on the face of it, the media appears to be free, the opposite is the evaluation by international evaluators. And, here is the crunch. Very often, the apparent freedom is abused by unethical media persons, and the outcome is a kind of free-for-all attitude taken by certain individuals in the media without keeping in mind the vital accompanying factor of responsible journalism.
A perusal of the Press Freedom Index 2008, prepared by the Bangladesh Centre for Development Journalism and Communication, reveals that 166 journalists in the country were subjected to physical violence, death threat, harassment, abduction, and other forms of torment that year. The trend continued in January and February of 2009, and, in fact, if the figures of these two months are extrapolated, the incidences during 2009 should comfortably have surpassed the figure of the previous year. The Bangladesh Manobadhikar Sangbadik Forum report on Press Freedom in Bangladesh --- 2006-2007 is more specific in its identification of the media bashers. The clobbering and persecution of journalists usually occurred when the press uncovered corruption and anomalies committed by ministers, MPs, local leaders and party activists. This is alarming news.
While a number of the incidents may be attributed, as in previous years, to ruling party or coalition functionaries venting their dissatisfaction over genuine news stories going against the government or their party/coalition partners, although others, perhaps less in number, might well have been an expression of violence against fabricated or misleading reports. In effect, the Bangladesh Press Council should be given real operative power (here the government will have to see to it that it is able to exercise its jurisdiction without having to continuously look over its shoulder) to curb unprincipled journalism, and the newspaper editors will have to see to it that it does not find its way in to blacken their newspapers.
The US-based Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) espouses the media's potential to promote democratic development in these words: “Media give people a voice, acting as a balance and watchdog to potential government misconduct. Without a voice, citizens cannot be heard; with a voice, they cannot be ignored.... Not only are countries more democratic with free and independent media, but their governments are also more accountable.” CIMA has automatically assumed that the media is responsible in exercising its right to express itself freely, but it is not a condition that is met in Bangladesh. The spirit of democracy has yet to take hold of the mindset of its general citizenry, and, so, to expect the media to behave here like it does over there in the established advanced democracies would be wishful thinking for some time at least. And, it is not even that the media in those societies are totally above unethical shenanigans or are fully free of government control. The First Amendment to the American Constitution does not provide for absolute freedom from government regulation, as Thomas Patterson explains: “Press freedom can be denied...if it is obscene, endangers national security, or damages the reputation of another.” However, rulings like that of the US Supreme Court in The New York Times v. Sullivan case (1964), combined with the American press itself evolving into an institution that dignifies its right to freedom of expression with responsible execution of its profession have made government control largely redundant.
“But it is not enough to write into the constitution the concept or right of a free press. More than that, media audiences themselves need to be educated as to what it means to have a free press, to have a voice, to make government accountable in a society where the concept of democracy is still in its infancy” (Peter Kareithi and Nixon Kariithi, Untold Stories: Economics and Business Journalism in African Media, 2005). These words, written in the context of the African continent in general, could well have been composed with Bangladesh, a relatively nascent democracy, in mind. Ours is a free press largely in appearance because the baggage of political agenda it generally carries is too heavy to allow for the proper functioning of the media in a true democracy.
But our democracy itself is progressing through a hazardous road of political intolerance, political gamesmanship, and other dysfunctions that stem much from the single factor of a general lack of the mindset for the spirit of the political system called liberal democracy. The media suffers as a result, but it also often finds unable, at times unwilling, to extricate itself from the quagmire of the halting progress of democracy. The phenomenon of unprincipled journalism could easily be traced to this factor, although it is not the sole determinant. It needs to be gradually reduced, since total eradication cannot be realistically expected within a short time, with some of the measures suggested above, for the path to the functioning of the spirit of democracy itself to be eased. Ultimately, however, it will be up to the media professionals themselves to cleanse themselves of the unhealthy practice of unethical journalism. The media is too important a factor in a nation's life and ethos to be degraded by a few unworthy and unscrupulous elements.
The author is Head, Media and Communication Department, Independent University, Bangladesh. |
