“No story is worth a journalist’s life.”
This is a sentence which is increasingly being used to direct newsrooms all over the world. The editors forbid reporters from reporting certain news and events where there is a substantial risk of reprisal or intimidation. Fearing severe reprisal, various subjects of public importance are blanketed.
Journalism is not an easy profession. We all bear witness to the tough road we have walked together as the world witnesses one of its darkest ages. Media organisations have swelled in the last few years. Journalists in many countries face violence and other forms of intimidation, especially when reporting about authoritarian regimes or organized crime.
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We all read stories about the intimidation journalists face, however, the issue stands normalised now. Also, most of the cases of harassment do not make it to the mainstream, pertaining to various issues- their geographical location, their outreach, their contacts. The media is living in the age of crisis, and reporting becomes an easy job. You can speak on fiction and fantasies for ages and several ages to come, reporting gets tougher.
The media, people in our age need to understand, is their only tool to fight the information war, when a more powerful side continues to ridicule every parallel existent narrative on the ground. This is a critical juncture, when Kashmiris need to stand by their journalists as more and more voices continue to be choked for merely doing their duties honestly.
In Kashmir, we have seen Journalists being summoned, arrested, intimated, harassed on the ground, on social media. Our editor, Salman Shah who edits the weekly newspaper Kashmir First, has been picked up during a nocturnal raid on Tuesday. Suhail Dar, who freelances with us was also arrested on Friday, according to his family. This is not an incident to be seen in isolation. It is but a smaller thread to a larger picture of how the guaranteed Freedom of Expression is being curbed.
Journalists are not allies or foes to anyone. We just bridge gaps, act as messengers; we all know- yet we tend to overlook this and often perceive the journalist as a foe or an ally.
Law and money are also used by these regimes to reward or punish the media. They use punitive defamation or insult legislation, monitor, and, if necessary, limit access to the Internet and social media.
It is not easy to report. The amount of risk that Journalists undertake in several stories just uncover the truth blanketed by many. Every journalist knows the amount of risk that any story involves. The pressure we face as Journalists is so tense that most of the journalists choose to retreat into self-censorship leaving the field of reporting to a handful of journalists who still dare to record and post the news on Internet, often at great personal risks.
An increasing number of people killed doing “acts of journalism” are these “information doers”, as BBC World anchor Nik Gowing calls them, who act as “the new witnesses of acute real time-crisis”.
Before it’s too late, government must act. Power must be held accountable for their comments and acts that hurt journalists and limit press freedom.
The Power must be held accountable on social media networks, whether by removing incendiary or inaccurate posts, flagging them as spreading fake news, or simply closing down their accounts.
The pressures on journalism are not a purely journalistic issue. We need to speak up not only for those who we are friends with or who support us, we need to speak for the profession that is under threat- under serious threat.