Two years ago, on the watch of a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress dispensation in Maharashtra, policemen barged into the home of TV anchor Arnab Goswami after the government re-opened an old case — the arrest spectacle was a message.
Those in power out to delegitimise a free press. And a newsroom that put self-righteousness above rigour.
By: Editorial
Updated: November 3, 2022 7:17:26 am
These are challenging times for the independent press, their work an inalienable part of the citizen’s fundamental right to freedom of expression and the right to know. Across the world, even and especially in settled democracies, fidelity to Constitutional compacts is tested by the weight of popular and populist movements. India is no exception. Governments both at the Centre and in many states have often shown a striking disregard for press freedom. Two years ago, on the watch of a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress dispensation in Maharashtra, policemen barged into the home of TV anchor Arnab Goswami after the government re-opened an old case — the arrest spectacle was the message. Two months ago, the Income Tax department that reports to the BJP-led Centre raided the Centre for Policy Research, one of the country’s most respected public policy think tanks, and IPSMF, a foundation that supports independent digital media platforms. The police and agencies like the I-T Department, ED and CBI, sometimes act in concert to subdue and intimidate. It is in this setting — of a take-no-prisoners government and an FIR-happy police — that The Wire, a news website, made a grave mistake. And, in the aftermath, self-righteously continues to compound it.
The saga began with The Wire publishing a story about a take-down of a post on Instagram. Citing purported electronic documents, including internal e-mails and videos, allegedly from Instagram and its parent company Meta, it sought to establish that immunity had been given to the BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya vis a vis his own posts and also special privileges in terms of taking down the posts of others, no questions asked. The story, or stories, unravelled after Meta categorically stated that the “documents” The Wire had relied on were not authentic and “independent experts” trotted out by the website to verify them said they had done no such thing. At this point, alongwith the lack of journalistic diligence and rigour that the sorry saga exposed, The Wire showed an abdication of responsibility. It apologised, belatedly, to its readers, not to those it had ostensibly called out. On the very day the police filed an FIR on Malviya’s complaint against it, The Wire itself filed a police complaint against its own reporter or “consultant”, who had allegedly supplied the electronic documents that the stories had drawn upon. This last act, of passing the buck to the weakest link, does not just belie The Wire‘s own moral posturing. It raises a significant question: Are The Wire, and others who model themselves on it, mere platforms for unreliable propagandists, or responsible newsrooms and, therefore, accountable for the mistakes that bear their name?
The answer is consequential when those in power seek to delegitimise all questioning media as “presstitutes” to entrench their own top-down, one-way messaging. That The Wire‘s complaint should invite the police to probe its own “consultant” and that it should mirror the language of the FIR filed against it on Malviya’s complaint — “the accused alongwith unknown others” says Malviya; “at the behest of other unknown persons”, says The Wire‘s complaint — is disturbing. The police breached an important red line when it entered The Wire‘s newsroom, seized the electronic devices used by its staffers. In a democracy, a newsroom’s exchanges with the world, many of which are and must remain confidential, the back and forth of honest journalistic practice, need protection. In its effort to distance itself from its own story, The Wire, which to its credit, most recently brought Pegasus to light, breached an important line too. It did not do its job, it blamed everything on a colleague, and, on record, invited the police and the powers in — playing perfectly to the latter’s script.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd