Journalism at crossroads

Mark Tully, the former Bureau chief of BBC gave the lecture on ‘Media and Transformative Governance’ at the inaugural meeting organised by Lila Prism with Saeed Naqvi, senior Indian journalist, chairing the event.

Tully, in his lecture, emphasised the need of transformative government and to ensure the same, he urged the community of journalists to come together and promote transformative journalism. He said, “In the times of tear-jerking, sensational media work it is important to study and identify areas that need transformation and do more coverage on those.” Quoting the example of Peepli Live, he said that media should also realize the power of storytelling and ally itself with other means of storytelling such as films, literature, theatre etc. In this context, he stressed on the importance of radio as a news medium and how restrictions have hindered its utilisation.

Talking about the implausibility of the social media, he stated, “Social media is the electronic version of India’s rumour well as it lacks the credibility that orthodox media tries to rehab.” Focusing on objectivity as one of the significant media ethics, he said media should not be the part of the play and should avoid becoming cheerleaders for anyone. Citing the example of the anti-corruption movements, he said that media failed to take the story further and did not study the root cause of it—’as the movement ended so did the stories in the newspaper’.

Tully also made his fellow colleagues aware of the gravity of the profession and how they should highlight the role of government, especially in the rural areas. He said, “rather than cheering the rhetoric, the media should get down to study the needs of the country and create stories that can drum the change in.”

The one hour lecture which questioned the authenticity of media left the audience with questions which are difficult to answer and pursued media community to transform itself and bring back the good name.