Overnight, the media turned Anuja into an icon of honesty. High profile personalities, including President Ram Baran Yadav and Chief Justice Ram Prasad Shrestha, called and congratulated her to appreciate her integrity. However, to the surprise all, later media developments revealed that the news story and the people quoted were nothing but a hoax.
Lesson for all
This is a good lesson for journalists and our media that they need to be more accountable for the news they cover. The fault of "Anuja" is much less than that of the journalist, who without checking the authenticity of the news, went ahead to publish it. The news story neither had any statement from the so-called rightful owner of such a huge amount of money and precious diamond necklace, nor any confirmation of the IME branch in Itahari, from where the money was reportedly withdrawn. IME later said there had been no such transaction on the mentioned date.
The publication itself has confessed that the fictitious news report was based on information furnished by Baniya and Pokharel’s daughter Sudha, son Anil and adopted daughter Anita Karki, without enough investigation and verification.
However, publishing such news aimed at creating a sensation among the readers or viewers without enough verification will only ruin the credibility of our media. This news baffled many people while misleading the president. This should serve as an eye-opener for our journalists who repeatedly produce immature sensational news without enough investigation, verification and cross checking. Every journalist should remember the words of advice: when in doubt, cut it out; do not publish all the rumours that come to you without serious and sincere verification.
After the restoration of multi-party democracy with constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press, the private sector started investing in the media. Several broadsheet dailies started publication with professional hands and a huge budget. This proved good to some extent as it injected the much-needed competition, and professionals were happy as journalism was developing in an institutional manner.
Obviously, competition leads to better or more balanced coverage; however, abundance is not diversity or in-depth because public interest today is more of what interests the producers and investors, not the people who read the newspaper. Therefore, the fierce competition among the major dailies to carve up a major share of the Nepali media market has frequently led to a breach of professionalism. For this reason, media watchers say they have started to lose credibility as well as their circulation.
Today the mass media’s propensity for sensationalism and craze is on the increase. Many of the news stories are more or less opinionated or opinion-based, whereas they should be mostly fact-based. Similarly, in broadcast media, the focus is on maximising the number of viewers rather than delivering the content. TV channels always jump on to anything and flash ‘breaking news’ instantly.
This has inspired the tabloid syndrome in the so-called serious broadsheet dailies, and the people who run newspapers in
Planted stories make it to the front page. Even factual information given in the newspapers turns out to be incorrect time and again. The biggest casualty has been the credibility of the media.
Editorialising
Against this ground reality, media watchers need to raise some questions. How objective is the Nepalese press in reporting and headlining the news story? Are we qualifying and attributing the news story as well as our headlines? We know a qualification is used to show that a statement was made by a source other than the reporter, and this is done to put the burden of proof on someone else.
However, on the contrary, editorialising the headline and story is a common exercise. When we apply words of value judgment, it is editorialising. Follow-up stories regarding Anuja’s news story that appeared in the leading dailies is ample proof of this.
Sure you have raised a valid point. Specially in Nepal the journalist, media houses as well as the advertisers are not paying any attention toward their responsibility. They only think how to publish the material at their own interest ignoring the impact to the people-readers as well as to the country. This is very shameful.
ReplyDeleteThere is no research on the source of the news, there is no reaserch on the validity of advertisement, there is no research on the reliableness of the reporter. Just make an story and throw in the press and out. Its that simple to publish. But the result, all the readers, subscribers are cheated. I wonder when they will feel responsible.