What about you, Katju?
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: March 14, 2013 -

'Bold', 'Brilliant', 'One of the Best', 'Maverick', etc, may be just some of the adjectives that many people have used to describe his personality and his courtroom activities may be one of the fastest in India, disposing off over 100 cases in a matter of one week, but Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman of Press of Council of India (PCI) is a man who is no stranger to controversy.

In his own admittance, Katju is not worried about courting controversies. His personal appeal to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, while he was still a judge of Supreme Court, for releasing Khalil Chishty, an elderly Pakistani virologist convicted for murder in an Indian jail that raised the hackles of many 'patriotic Indians'; his denial of the existence of Pakistan calling it a 'fake country' artificially created by the British with their 'bogus two-nation theory', his inflammatory '90 per cent of Indians are idiots' remark; his war of words with BJP over his allegation of involvement of Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat Violence; his attack on the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar for allegedly targeting media if it wrote anything against the government, etc, are well-known.

But his latest move to prescribe a minimum qualification for people wanting to enter the profession of journalism has interestingly drawn sharp reactions from media practitioners and experts, who at one of point time or the other, were lapping up to the bold and brilliant judgments or remarks of this maverick PCI chief and former Supreme Court judge.

Maintaining that lack of an eligibility criterion for professional journalists is at the root cause of poor reportage in the country, Katju on Tuesday announced setting up of a committee comprising PCI members Shravan Garg, Rajeev Sabade and Dr Ujjwala Barve, Associate Professor of Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Pune to 'recommend the minimum qualification required to become a journalist''.

It's true that other professions such as medicine, law and teaching have minimum qualification for entry.

But journalism is not a profession that could be compared with either medicine, law or teaching.

It is also true that standard of reportage may be compromised when people with little or inadequate training in journalism enter the profession.

But it is also a fact that some of the greatest journalists that the world has ever produced have been without any university degree and schooling in journalism.

Yes, we agreed that prior training and education in the field may help to some level, but there is no guarantee that a certificate or a degree that one receives from an institute at the end of their training courses would make them good journalists.

So, prescribing a minimum qualification for journalists to enter the profession or making it mandatory for anyone wishing to join the profession would be really unfortunate.

After all, the best training for journalism is on the field.

By the way, if there were eligibility criterion for journalists, where that would have placed the present PCI Chief? Just wondering!