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Journalism of Courage
In an order dated December 16, the Press Council of India (PCI) censured the ‘Star of Mysore’ (SOM) for its April 2020 editorial, ‘Bad Apples in the Basket’. In the piece, the Mysore-based news publication purportedly called the Muslim community in India “bad apples”. A censure by the PCI means that the state government concerned must not advertise in the paper for three consecutive months.
Following the publication of the article, The Campaign Against Hate Speech – a collective that works towards promoting media accountability – filed a complaint with the PCI against SOM editor M Govinda Gowda and the then editor-in-chief KB Ganapathy. The complaint claimed that “the news agency is promoting and inciting hatred towards the community (Muslims) on the grounds of religion… thereby violating a basic principle of journalism of not to attribute individual actions to a whole community to spread hatred and violence against it.”
Thereafter, an inquiry committee was constituted by the PCI and it recommended censure after hearing both parties involved in the matter. In its report, the inquiry committee stated that “it is of the opinion that this editorial may have been written in the context of Corona pandemic but the conclusion is inevitable that it is targeting one community, i.e. the Muslims, even though the community had not been explicitly named in the editorial.”
The committee also refused to accept the apology that had been tendered by the newspaper on April 10, 2020, soon after the publication of the editorial, stating that the “apology is not genuine” and had been tendered only because a mob had surrounded the offices of the newspaper.
The inquiry committee further said that “it is unfair to blame a particular community for the spread of the pandemic. There were several lapses during the relevant period and we cannot identify people belonging to a certain community as being responsible for those lapses.”
It also highlighted the responsibility of the press to not indulge in divisive acts, to spread the message of brotherhood among people of all communities, to strengthen India’s unity in diversity, and “desist from publishing inflammatory writings which fan the flames of communalism.”
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