Media146;s PR problem

Precisely because this newspaper puts a great deal of emphasis on investigative reportage, it has always been deeply uncomfortable with 8220;sting journalism8221;. But we are even more uncomfortable, to say the least, with the government8217;s attempts to 8220;bring order8221; in media practices. Therefore, while we can see where the Supreme Court is coming from when it commented on Wednesday that sting journalism doesn8217;t automatically serve public interest, we absolutely cannot comprehend what the I038;B minister, P.R. Dasmunshi, had in mind when he said legislative correctives were desirable.

The court8217;s scepticism on sting journalism seemed to be based on the lack of credibility that may follow from freelance operators hawking hidden camera output to the highest bidder. Our reservations are broader and deeper. Even if all sting operations were in-house efforts of established media organisations 8212; many sting stories in fact are 8212; the fundamental issue won8217;t go away: the acceptability of creating false contexts and providing real inducements and essentially duping the target. That this is way inferior to reporters and editors doing the real hard work, painstakingly breaking a story, should be self-evident. But plenty of 8216;pundits8217; argue against this. Sting operations have been passports to name-recognition in a crowded media market. Perhaps the market is the best corrective. Grainy footage of 8216;malefactors8217; whose lips have been loosened by promises of cash, Scotch and sex has already lost novelty for news consumers; a more damning verdict may follow as sting journalism seeks newer thrills.

Mr Dasmunshi should wait for news consumers to deliver their verdict. Legislating on any media practice is counter-productive, not because the media is above scrutiny 8212; it is not 8212; but because it is impossible for any law to anticipate the infinite contexts that journalism has to necessarily operate in. The Indian media is largely self-regulating, in contrast to the media in many other democracies. There can be arguments for better self-regulation. There can be no argument that there8217;s bad journalism along with good journalism. But what is inarguable is that the I038;B ministry is not where the answers lie.