Cheers to a free press

While we are on this onerous topic, our thoughts drift to how we can extend the concept of a free press in this country still further. Everyone would recognise, without doubt, that transportation is an integral part of journalistic duty. We would, therefore, urge the guardians of the air in this country, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, to do the civil thing and follow in the footsteps of the Ministry of Railways by ensuring that journalists have no fear of flying. In other words, they must be entitled to free, or at the very least, handsomely subsidised air travel. This, besides facilitating the swifter collection of information in a free and fair fashion, would ensure that journalists are not put to that intense physical discomfort that has in the past sometimes deterred someof us from achieving our optimum levels in breaking through information barriers.

Of course, a free press requires more than just free air and rail travel. A free car would also, most people will agree, contribute towards solving the problem of locomotion that so many of us face. In this context, perhaps car companies, beginning with the partly government-owned Maruti Udyog Ltd, could be persuaded to spare a few of their chariots for the greater good of this country8217;s democracy. If every member of the Fourth Estate was duly equipped with free wheels, think of how much more efficiently we would be able to achieve our quest for press freedom.

Locomotion is just one aspect of life as a journalist. Accommodation is the other. The Ministry of Tourism should actively consider making available to us the vast resource of five- and four-star hotels that it has at its command. I may bring to the attention of the authorities that hotel tariffs have in the past come in the way of the press exercising its right topursue information freely.

It follows, therefore, that luxury rooms at subsidised rates are the basic minimum required to ensure that the free press in the country remains an ever-vigilant and freely functioning one. Luxury rooms, absolutely free of cost, would of course better facilitate this arduous process of news-gathering. Then there is that little matter of bodily nourishment. I have always believed that a few items of food and drink should not be allowed to come between the country and a free press. To my mind, billing journalists for their meagre requirements on this score amounts to unwarranted cruelty and a savage attempt to curb the media8217;s free and fair style of functioning. On the contrary, drinks and food on the house have invariably helped in the functioning of a free press.

Accommodation during travel is only one aspect of the problem. There is the more pressing matter of permanent accommodation. While I would like to place on record the fact that several state governments in this countryhave gone out of their way to allocate prime land and housing for the scribes of this country, it would help greatly to have a uniform policy on this score. I am quite sure there is not a soul in the country if he/she is truly convinced about the value of a free press, who would grudge a journalist some free accommodation in prime locations so that they are not unduly fettered by anxieties over housing and are free to pursue their vocation fearlessly.Nothing in life comes free of cost, and a free press is no exception to this general rule. The rail mantri made a good beginning in making Indian media a little freer. Now it is up to other ministries and institutions to join in this struggle for freedom.