Journalism stands for the quest for truth, enquiry, unfaltering commitment towards upholding ethical standards, and above all, responsibility. It builds public opinion and plays a significant role in the modernisation and development of society in a civilized way. However, in recent times it has been going against the basic fundamentals and values, especially when we look at it in the context of our own region of J&K.
Yesterday, a video caught my sight in which a journalist was interviewing a senior politician while he was driving a car in congested Srinagar, without taking into account that what if God forbid it caused an accident. Many reports suggest that negligence while driving is one of the major contributors to road accidents. There are many more instances which raise concerns about the future of this profession but let me not go into all of them, just highlight a few:
Challenges faced by Journalism today:
1: Erosion of ethical standards and professionalism: The field of journalism is synonymous with professionalism and has its own defined area and limitations but the working style and culture adopted by some journalists completely contradicts it.
2: Losing credibility and trust: Journalism has such a good track record and historic achievements to its name but substandard and senseless work by some journalists is a threat to its credibility.
3: Public perception: The public perception of journalism today is of a self-serving cohort of immature and undeserving people with no intention to advance good journalism.
4: Failure to address core issues: Journalists bridge the gap between government and people and act as a major link between the two, but instead of highlighting the core issues, most news portals are flooded with advertisements and useless stuff.
5: Impartiality and Bias: Journalists are expected to work with impartiality and unbiased but some of them are clearly spokespersons of political parties or persons and promote their agenda.
7: Insensitivity and lack of effective monitoring: Silence of press clubs and senior journalists is also worsening the situation.
What can be way out:
1: Re-energising the agenda of good, qualitative and ethically charged Journalism: Different associations, press houses and journalists should make all-round efforts to ensure better journalism and also propose effective guidelines for everyone in this field.
2. Role of law: Law enforcing agencies should also ensure that nobody in this field is given a chance to spread hatred, communal and regional disharmony, hate speech and unverified content.
3: Role of the Public: The general public has also a great role to not endorse those who distort the spirit of oneness and unity and present false and wrongful narratives. People should avoid giving undue importance to such persons.
Journalism no doubt is one of the greatest and noble professions and has done tremendous work for the society. However, the need of the hour is to weed out the problems in this field in order to have a better and ethically charged journalism.
The writer is a student of BA Political science at AMU