Free Media and Killings
We, as young activists and with the arrival of social media into various facets of our life, blame media for being the mouthpiece of politicians, but do we ever try to think why this is so? In India, be it Zee News, Ajj Tak, India Tv, NDTV are understood as instruments of politicians to popularise them to win. In the USA, Fox News or CNN News is the most popular news platform. Both are respectively understood to be biased towards the Republicans and the Democrats. As per the data of the Committee for the protection of journalists, there are 50 journalists homicides in India and, as per other broadcast sources, almost over 110 killings.
Let us establish the relationship between all the deaths of journalist in India, Shujaat Bukhari was a Kashmiri journalist and was murdered in 2018, and He was involved in peace talks operated connecting India and Pakistan. The terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba is blamed for his killing. When there is peace, the most concerned are the politicians; they lose the ground based on which they win votes. Shujaat Bukhari, therefore, was a threat to both the sides of politicians. Naveen Nischal, A stringer for the Hindi Newspaper Dainik Bhaskar succumbed to his injuries after an SUV ran over him, According to sources he was besmirching the malpractices of the village head which led to his killing. Video journalist Achyutananda Sahu, who worked for Doordarshan, was halted by Maoist insurgents as he was involved in covering the news of the voting process to be held in Chhattisgarh. Chandan Tiwari, a local reporter with Hindi daily AJ, was abducted, beaten, and later succumbed to injuries. According to reports, Chandan was maligning Singh, a local private contractor for a government-run program, and plotted against Chandan due to the financial failures. Sandeep Sharma, who was defaming a Sand-Mafia, illegally operating in Madhya Pradesh received death threats and later was killed in a “Hit and Run” case. Sharma was defaming the police involved in the ‘Sand Mafia.’ Gauri Lankesh, an ardent critic of the BJP led government, was killed by fascist Hindu activists. Sudip Datta Bhowmik, a senior journalist, shot dead two months after the murder of Shantanu Bhawmik. Subal Kumar Dey, in his reports, calls the murder an act of vengeance by TSR officials for exposing financial irregularities.
A senior journalist, Kishore Dave, was found dead, lying in a pool of blood in the Saurashtra region. He was the bureau chief of a Gujarati newspaper called ‘Jai Hind.’ Relative of Mr. Dave claimed a local politician’s son was behind the murder, whom Mr dave exposed for sexual harassment in some of his reports. Journalist Karun Mishra, Director-General of United Nations, condemns his murder. Under resolution 29 of the general assembly, the UN is having an investigation into the case. He was exposing the local politician.
The abundance of cases of journalist murders have a long list, but their death shares a commonality, These journalists were fearless in their strategy of investigative journalism and continued to work even after death threats. The police never gave them protection and the cases remain unsolved till the date.
The murder of these journalist makes a point that no journalist irrespective of the country in which they operate cannot survive without political support, They too know the fate of their fellow journalists who died exposing some powerful people, If a journalist wants to defame someone they will need money, crew and support hence the news started to become bias. All the cases above are those reporters who did not belong to a big media house or have had any political connections. Most of the cases of murder trace its inception to the Bootlegging of money, goods, or sexual assault.
We think journalism is an easy task. Those journalists who suffer the pain and mental harassment know why they do biased journalism when they speak they have their mouths gagged with words politicians want them to speak. There never may exist free media even if they are free from threats, We as humans are the slave of our personal bias, and if no personal bias while delivering a piece of news, the sense of material fulfillments persuades them to sell the lies.
Until and unless the journalist and the judges are not given the protection they need, Communal Violence, hatred, False news will continue to circulate in the country.
The views in the article are personal.
