It's not the first time, nor will it be the last time. The Press and Television coverage of the Kanchi Sankaracharya, Sri Jayendra Saraswati's arrest in the 'Sankararaman murder case', has revived the eternal debate on trial by the Indian media. If on occasions in the past, the media may have substituted fact with fiction or thereabouts, this time again, it cannot escape the opprobrium of partisan sensationalism in the name of extensive news coverage. <br /> <br /> The last time it happened, the high seat of the Prime Minister of the land ended up as the target. Even the equally important office of the Opposition Leader did not escape the media flak. The first involved the 'Lakhubhai Pathak case', when a pickle-maker picked at Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Likewise, L K Advani, the BJP's prime minister in waiting then as he is now, had to launch a damage-control exercise in double quick time after he was named in the 'Jain hawala scam'. <br /> <br /> In both the cases, the courts have since ruled otherwise, but the personal damage wrought on individuals at the time through a high-voltage media campaign may have also changed the nation's history. Television news channels were still in their infancy, if at all, and those were thus the days of freshly-launched or re-launched weekly magazines in the English language. <br /> <br /> In turn, their reporters and commentators took the lead in misleading the nation, by passing not just value judgment with inadequate information, and even less knowledge. So much so, in the Lakhubhai Pathak case, they either did not know, or did not ask for, corroboratory evidence to substantiate Narasimha Rao's wrong-doing. In the 'hawala case', the media's whole case was based on a mention of an 'Advani' in the personal diary of an accused, which listed persons to whom, he had purported to have paid money. At that stage, there was not even proof that the amounts paid amounted to some kind of an illegal gratification, leave alone the question of the 'Advani' in the diary referred only to the BJP leader. <br /> <br /> If someone thought that the Indian media would have learnt its lesson since then, it's not to be. It's nobody's case if the Sankaracharya was involved in the Sankararaman murder. It's for not even the police, but the courts to decide. For the media to go overboard with the little information that is available, just because the persona involved merited a top-slot on a given day, is irresponsible, to say the least. <br /> <br /> Time was when the nation had woken up shock and disbelief to the media expose of the 'Mundra scam', leading to the resignation of then Finance Minister, the late T T Krishnamachari. However, the media investigation of the 'Antulay trusts' came close to pamphleteering, two decades later. Yet, the subsequent 'Bofors expose' sought to restore some of the lost credibility as the mainline newspaper heralding the investigation refused to commit itself to what it did not know for sure - even when bringing out in great detail what all it did know, without holding back a fig and thus leading to misinterpretation. <br /> <br /> The 21st century Indian media as it stands today seems to believe in the maxim of their American counterpart that speed is an adequate substitute for facts. So fast have been some of our media personnel and their organisations that they are often inadequately prepared to handle special news situations arising out of arrests and court proceedings. It was thus that the very sight of the Sankaracharya affixing his thumb-impression to a court document at Kancheepuram led to some journalists concluding that the judicial magistrate had ordered his police custody for five days. It's another matter that the same information got to be quoted in the Madras High Court, before the error was rectified. <br /> <br /> Not very long ago, a leading media organisation wrongly announced that the Special Court, off Chennai, trying the 'Rajiv Gandhi assassination case', had sentenced LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran and two other absconding offenders, to death. The error may have been caused by the people concerned relying on the original charge-sheet filed by the CBI-SIT, in which alone Prabhakaran's name was given as the first accused, A-1. They may not have known about the presence or the relevance of a second charge-sheet, from which Prabhakaran's name had been removed, after the court declaring him and two others as 'absconders', to be tried separately as and when apprehended. <br /> <br /> There is vast difference between these, and a news agency 'Flash' on the 'death' of Jayaprakash Narayan when he was still alive. The agency relied not on its 'sources', but was only relaying a statement made by then Prime Minister Morarji Desai, that too at the Parliament. To the extent, the distinction between is clear as crystal. <br /> <br /> There is no denying the role of the high infrastructure costs and the higher salaries that are being paid to TV journalists in all this. Even today, much of the print media in the country has specially-trained reporters covering specific beats like courts. Their knowledge has often made them less sure of themselves - and suspect what is on offer. Their editors, at least in the earlier generations, also tended to be more circumspect, but not any more. <br /> <br /> Questions remain. Can all the editorial writers put the clock back, and render justice to Narasimha Rao and Advani - or to the nation as a whole, that way? At least in this, the Indian media can learn from their all-American counterparts, whose right and access to information is often cited as a precedent. The world that continues to see the Twin Towers crumbling down, as captured 'Live' by the American television channels, is yet to see the body of even one of the 3000-odd victims on the very same channels. Or, even the painful relief work at the sites of 9/11 terror-strikes. Not just in the US, but in most of the western media stopped quoting Osama bin-Laden after American President George Bush asked them not to give him any space, ahead of the 'Iraq War'. <br /> <br /> In contrast, at the height of the 'Parliament attack', you had Indian TV reporters telling the world where to find much of the Indian political leadership, if there was still a terrorist lurking on the premises. Obviously, they all had not learnt from the earlier faux pas, if it could still be called one, caused by the TV publicity given to the families of the 'Kandhahar hijack' victims, as they forced their way into the news conference addressed by External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh. The 'Sankaracharya arrest episode' showed that the Indian media has not learnt its lesson, as yet. If there was any intention to learn such a lesson, there is no indication, either. <br /> <br /> The 'Sankaracharya episode' will be remembered also for the very timing of the arrest. As is known, the arrest was effected ahead of a long weekend, made longer by the Diwali prefix and the Ramadan suffix. It meant that the media, in the absence of substantive Government news during those 'starved days', could not afford to downplay the arrest. Though it did not affect the Sankaracharya, it also brought into sharp focus, the practice of well-timed week-end arrests, which would deny the arrested person the right to move for bail, forthwith. <br /> <br /> Maybe, it's thus time that the Supreme Court revisited the verdict in the 'D K Basu case', listing out the do's and don't's for the police while effecting an arrest, to restrict weekend and holiday-eve arrests to the rarest of rare cases. By the same token, the court could also consider telling the media, where to draw the line, and also tell the State where not to involve the media - at least without verifying the credentials of individual reporters to cover specialised beats like hospitals, courts and legislatures. A beginning needs to be made, if the courts are not to be caught unawares, likewise…. <br /> <br /> <em>* Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Observer Research Foundation.</em>
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