Why Modi govt has a problem with media

Last week, the Modi government had a Trumpian moment. In a debate reminiscent of the battle between President Donald Trump and the mainstream media in the US – Trump often blames the ‘crooked’ media for all his problems as president – the Smriti Irani-headed Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry announced a notification that the government would suspend the accreditation of journalists found producing fake news. The notification had also proposed amended guidelines for obtaining accreditation. The I&B ministry justified its notification, saying it was needed to combat ‘the increasing instances of fake news’, though it did not explain how it would define fake news.

The notification may have been short-lived but it created an immediate outrage among journalists, who viewed it as an attempt to muzzle the media in a year that will witness several assembly elections leading up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. However, just as the storm over the ill-conceived notification was growing, the Prime Minister’s Office intervened and ordered cancellation of the contentious diktat, leaving the Press Council of India to look into the matter of fake news. There is no denying that fake news is a problem. So is paid news, which the government is silent about. Combating fake news is a just cause. But how it can be done remains an unresolved issue. Cancelling a journalist’s accreditation as soon as an accusation is made is not a fair proposition.

Fake news is a global pandemic. It has rattled policymakers across Europe where multiple countries have had elections in the last one year. The term ‘fake news’ became ubiquitous during the 2016 presidential election in America when false stories, allegedly generated by Russian-linked social media accounts, were spread online which are said to have influenced the election outcome. Since then, fake news has been applied to everything from outright fabrications to simple mistakes in news reporting, and even true news people want to discredit. Numerous countries are experimenting with different models for handling the fake news problem. But in the variety of approaches and different answers to the problem, the central question is: Whose job is it to fight disinformation? Should it be the responsibility of the government, the tech companies or the readers themselves?

While there is no clear answer to the central question, countries in South-east Asia are also facing with similar battles with widespread circulation of fake news, which is one of the biggest challenges in countries like Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and India. Malaysia’s recently drafted fake news legislation provides for prison sentences of up to six years. Singapore is also reported to be considering a tough new legislation. Whether India is trying to take a cue from Malaysia is anybody’s guess, but the tendency to pressurise news media has always existed in India.

Under the pretext of combating fake news, the current government trained its guns on legitimate media people and not many of the websites that churn out fake news, motivated stories, views and video clips that are aimed at mocking, creating confusion, misunderstanding and cause disinformation.

Interestingly, days after the government withdrew its contentious order following widespread criticism, the I&B ministry turned its lens on the online media. It has constituted a committee – comprising mainly of bureaucrats and one representative each from the print and electronic media – to frame rules to regulate news portals and media websites. The committee will recommend a framework for online media/news portals and online content platforms, including digital broadcasting, which encompasses entertainment/infotainment and news/media aggregators. The terms of reference of the committee include delineation of the sphere of online information dissemination which needs to be brought under regulation, on the lines applicable to the print and electronic media.

The media – both print and electronic – does not have an unblemished track record. But by and large, barring a few exceptions that are known for their bias and staunch defence of the government, the media is certainly not in the business of propagating fake news. Politicised fake news resides mostly on online and social media platforms. Over the last four years, shady websites have had a field day spewing out fake news, videos and ‘alternative views’ designed to malign or portray certain opposition parties and leaders in negative light. But the government did not seem to have any problem with them. Now, fake news is a cause of concern for the government because the other camp has also taken to the social media to ‘give it back’ in equal measure.

Over the last four years, there has been a massive propaganda against secularists, liberals and democrats aimed at portraying them as anti-Hindu, anti-BJP and anti-NDA. Their ideological differences with the current ruling dispensation have been exploited by the latter to convince a vast section of population that India is ‘under grip of a liberal conspiracy’ to defame the prime minister and his government. This view has been lapped up by many people.

In the last four years, a section of the media has been too harsh on the opposition parties, particularly the Congress, while the government has been given a free hand to run its own narrative on governance, development, growth, job creation and rural distress. The government did not have a problem when the media was singing paeans of the ruling dispensation, while all guns were fired at the opposition. But things started changing after the Gujarat election in December and subsequent by-elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Poor performance in recent bye-elections, widespread rural distress, Dalit protests, resurgent opposition, bank scams and urban disenchantment with the NDA rule seem to have driven the government to the edge. Hence, the sudden need to discipline the media.

The recent spike in media coverage of the government’s under-achievement, mis-governance, scams, poor management of economy and growing joblessness is a worrying development for the government and the BJP which has a testing time ahead, starting with Karnataka elections in May, followed by Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh later. Fake news, malicious videos and sustained misinformation campaigns need to be dealt with appropriately under the existing legal statues. Muzzling the media for fear of legitimate stories and exposes will prove counter-productive.

There is no denying that fake news is a problem. So is paid news, which the government is silent about.