Shepherding the media

REPORTING A WAR throws up several challenges to the media. More than during normal times two basic attributes are put to ruthless examination with every military escalation: the ability to get to the facts and the environment offered by states at war for the flow of free comment by the media. The war clouds over Afghanistan have again meant testing the natural instincts of the media - to focus on the immediate and to place human suffering under the spotlight. During wars freedom becomes an immediate casualty and objectivity follows soon after. For, regimes tend to annul basic media rights by denying independent access to journalists covering war zones. The arrest and release of a British journalist and the detention of two French journalists who ventured into Afghan territory represents one of the several risks taken by journalists. It is also a consequence of the normal tendency of groupings at war to carry out battles through the media, resulting in the accentuating of the `us and them' syndrome. Wars are indeed the highest stakes games played out by nations, thereby providing justifications for restricted flow of information or, in extreme cases, a total clampdown in the form of either censorship or denial of independent access to the media. Yet, howsoever compelling these arguments may be, it is in the broad public interest that the media is provided independent access to zones of war.

The evolution of the media to its present times of live telecasts has also resulted in the tendency by Governments to resort to what has come to be known as media management; an exercise that even the more democratic states find difficult to resist. It is in these moments that the media's credibility is also subject to intense scrutiny. The ability to discern facts from fables - that abound during war time - is crucial in that it remains a responsibility of the media to provide credible information to the public. Equally important is to ensure that comment is not stifled and voices of dissidence are not taken as manifestations of enmity. Providing the social space for two processes, objectivity - to the maximum extent possible - in reportage and reasoned subjectivity in comment, will be important indicators of how states and societies cope with war. In the immediate context, the clampdown by the Taliban on the independent media, by way of ordering out foreign correspondents from its soil and by taking into custody those who venture into its territory, comes as a natural extension of its intolerance.

It is also imperative to understand that journalists working in the areas not under the control of the Taliban, for their part, operate under other constraints, mainly a near-total dependence on official versions of the war. Resisting temptations to toe the line of interested parties is an important first step in providing reports that are less subjective and more reflective of the ground. Handling such situations requires a thorough knowledge of the terrain, a good network of contacts and access to reliable information on various ingredients of a military escalation: the arsenal, the manpower deployed and the positioning of troops. Ensuring balance and credibility is also vital as citizens of a nation at war have the right to know the fate of their soldiers operating in faraway lands. In addition to the basic requirement of reporting the war, the media, which is a vibrant link between societies, is expected to bring to the public domain the debilitating social and economic consequences of war on the innocent victims trapped in the crossfire. Clearly, working to the accompaniment of booming guns and falling corpses is no pleasant task. Nonetheless, as the task needs to be done, it is important that the media is provided an environment that enables it to chart its own course.

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Section  : Opinion
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