The crisis of journalism

Unnamed whistleblowers who want the public to know certain things are often referred to as “sources” — a time-tested device in journalistic storytelling. The motivation of sources could be public interest, business rivalries, or even settling personal scores. Generally speaking, sources challenge an official narrative, regardless of their motive. But in a relatively new practice in journalism, platforms cite sources who merely amplify official narratives. As their claims align with those of the state, one wonders what or who these unnamed sources fear.

The effectiveness of journalism is not entirely a function of the quality of an individual journalist or a media platform — a basic fact that many well-meaning critics of the current state of affairs of the profession often tend to miss. Instead, its effectiveness, as an instrument of public accountability, is also linked to other factors, such as the public spiritedness of other actors and branches in the system. The executive branch around the world — in Israel, the U.K., the U.S., and India — claims unprecedented power these days, largely on grounds of national security. Super power executives impose heavy costs on whistleblowers and intimidate other branches into submission. The media has little access to official information but that is the outcome of a systemic crisis. There is little transparency in the functioning of the executive. Even answers to parliamentary questions, and submissions before the judiciary by the executive, are more about concealing than revealing information.

The ‘exclusive’ stories that ‘sources’ reveal to their preferred platforms, far from holding those in power accountable, brand critics of the government as foreign agents, or inadequately patriotic. The media’s conventional role as a mediator of the flow of information from its principal creators to the end user, the public, has become redundant with the emergence of social media. Principals communicate directly with the masses, and that is now increasingly accepted by masses as a mark of authenticity. What then is the role of mass media?

With sources drying up, and principals bypassing it, journalism as a profession is struggling to reinvent itself. Some journalists have found an easy route of joining the mob. There is guaranteed revenues and following, and the additional benefit of the badge of patriotic honour. Others have developed various models of counter-propaganda against the dominant narrative, which also can acquire instant following. A band of professionals is using newer tools — a mix of open source materials and ground reporting — which is untied from state power, at least theoretically. Open source information can be mined for great reporting, devoid of rhetoric and propaganda. The Hindu’s coverage of organised attempts to manipulate the voter list in the Aland Assembly constituency in Karnataka is a case in point.

What this takes is courage, capacity, and capital. Assuming that the first two are available, where would the money come from? Only a market fundamentalist can assume public interest journalism can be sustained by profit-seeking capitalism. Even public transport in New York, Tokyo, Paris, Madrid, and Seoul is heavily subsidised by the state, indicating the weak positive link between profit-seeking and public interest. But there is a rush among the rich to be media owners.

Meanwhile, publicly funded media platforms have been labelled a scandal by populists in the West, while they have been turned into amplifiers of government propaganda in India. While Prasar Bharati platforms never gained autonomy from the government, at least the idea had some resonance earlier, which is no longer the case. The BBC’s income has dropped by about £1 billion a year since 2010 (adjusted for inflation) and the National Public Radio, a robust public broadcaster in the U.S., is facing an existential funding threat. The debate about journalism needs to be broadened to include all this, particularly who pays for it.