Not exactly 2 plus 2 equals 4 : Guwahati outrage : Role of media
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 19, 2012 -

It is not 2 plus 2 equals 4. It is more like a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg.

The debate raging over the role of the reporter of a news channel who filmed the July 9 outrage on GS Road, plum in the heart of Guwahati city, has reopened one of the most unsettling questions surrounding the profession of journalism.

Should reporters on the field merely report what is unspooling before their eyes or should they become participants ?

The recent accusations raised by the KMSS leader that the reporter had instigated the mob is not central to this commentary, pending an inquiry.

What however remains is the question of whether it is fair to shoot the messenger. Should the reporter have stopped filming the sequence and gone to the rescue of the girl ?

Has such a question arisen because the case fell in the realm of the rarer cases or is it a case of the reporter being made a scapegoat for merely doing his job ?

On a bigger scale, was the outrage expressed by some section of the public an explosion of pent up anger gathered over the years due to the insensitive reportings indulged in by the media, especially the electronic media ?

Has the privacy line been erased too often by the media ?

There can be no black and white answers to these questions for the shades of grey are just too many to brush aside.

Yet at the same time it also remains true that the conscience of the Nation was stirred because of the job done by the reporter.

Moreover it also stands that it was the footage captured by the scribe that has led to the authority to establish the identities of the culprits.

The debate will linger, there is no doubt about it and herein lies the danger of this debate clouding the other equally important social implications.

Should the incident be reduced to a question of the conduct of the reporter and the TV Channel he represented or aren't there other equally important points that need to be discussed ?

Was the reporter the only person present at the time of the incident ?

What about the others who thought it safer and better to speed off from the scene of the incident, despite the pleadings from the young girl ?

Does this not say something about how insensitive society has become as a whole ?

The last word is yet to be said, for sure, but the focus of the debate need to shift to a bigger canvass.

On the other hand it may be argued that the reporter should not have forgotten his duty as a citizen of the land and as a human being.

Here was a young girl being molested by a mob in full public view and the least he could have done was raise a voice to try and stop the hooligans.

If not for anything else then at least the arguments trotted out here should be enough to say that it is not written in black and white on how journalists should respond when they find themselves in such situations.

This reminds us of a question thrown up by the late Sham Lal when he questioned whether a journalist with prior knowledge of an arson should report it to the police or cover the story.