Friday, January 12, 2007

Journalistic Independence

How important is it? Should the journalist record the facts (even while acknowledging that merely choosing which facts to report involves editorial discretion and therefore introduces some sort of bias) or should the journalist report in a bent in accordance with her paper's owners (as the editor will typically slash a journalist's piece in such a fashion if he too follows such a code). Or should she follow her own sets of morals and outrage and implant her lens on a story told to millions, shaping millions' point of view? The risks of that are of course high. Like Robert Fisk, who said that "It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.” and that "Tanks come in two forms: the dangerous, deadly kind and the "liberating" kind"; one faces discrimination by readers and by other members of the Establishment. For example Dumeetha Luthra of the BBC who reports in Sri Lanka about Sri Lanka (and who is Indian and not Sri Lankan) has been accused of reporting bias in favour of the Tamils and now rumours abound that the young lady is seeing someone Tamil in Colombo. She has received so much flak from the country that the BBC has posted her elsewhere. Truth?
"There is no such thing as truth here, there are only opinions", Anil's Ghost

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