Tablet-of-stone era of journalism coming to an end’
P. S. Suryanarayana
SINGAPORE: The “rules of the game” governing the global media scene “are changing in many places or have already changed,” and this “raises huge questions of accountability” about how news is covered.
The centrality of this aspect was brought into focus by The Hindu Editor-in-Chief N. Ram at a conference here on Monday on “the quest for new paradigms” in the media domain. Organised by the Singapore-based Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), at its 16th annual conference, the event also featured the first-ever World Journalism Education Congress. The general theme of the four-day meeting is “Media, Education, and Development.”
Chairing a plenary session on “Media freedom versus responsibility — East-West perspectives,” Mr. Ram said: “The discipline of verification is at the centre of journalism.” Noting that accountability, as an internal aspect of the media organisations, and social responsibility, as an “external” factor, “go together,” he said “there is no real line between them and they are just convenient terms of art.”
Mr. Ram said: “The tablet-of-stone era of journalism is coming to an end, at least in those places where The Guardian functions or The Washington Post, The New York Times, … and, to a large extent, even in developing countries. The moral was that you read it in the newspaper, it was a tablet of stone, you read it in the morning, and you waited till the next day or the next time the newspaper wrote on it to find out the truth. This is undergoing a profound change, not just because of the internet and digital media. But, it is the environment.”
The demand for accountability “is growing” in this context of “a highly interactive mode.” Moreover, journalists would “need to maintain a degree of independence or distance from those they seek to cover.” Such independence and freedom of expression would indeed go together under the rubric of reasonable restrictions in “a very diverse media ecology, globally speaking.”
On the East-West paradigm, he noted that the concept of Asian values was highly developed in Singapore, among other Southeast Asian and East Asian countries. “We respect their interesting responses to it. But, is there such a thing as Asian values, Eastern values. Does the civilisational and cultural context really detract from Article 19 freedoms [in India]? Are there societies which need more responsibility than freedom? Are there societies where independence is not that important when you practise journalism?”Responsibility and freedom
A media expert from Pakistan, Javed Jabbar, suggested that the norm should be “responsibility and media freedom,” instead of any notion of “versus” involving these two attributes. Tracing the role of Pakistan’s electronic media and other journalists in covering the ongoing crisis there, Mr. Jabbar said the strength of public opinion and the power of civil society were becoming evident. Yet, he thought the coverage should have been more balanced across the entire media spectrum.
Hans Henrik Holm of the Danish School of Journalism shone the spotlight on the recent cartoon controversy, which had enraged the Islamic world, to explain the nexus between freedom and responsibility. He said the protagonists of cartoonist-rights cited three arguments — the primacy of self-censorship over any other form of oversight, the importance of “secular” as different from religious values, and the norm of freedom of speech. The counter-arguments were that the cartoonist had incited hatred, stereotyped a community and adopted a double standard about what was permissible as free expression. While critics noted that journalists should be part of the solution and not the problem, the arguments that were not articulated at all, on either side of the divide, would relate to the basic issue of “who the journalists are responsible to.” Legal accountability on Net
Guy Berger, Rhodes University Professor in South Africa, unveiled a presentation about legal accountability on the internet. Commending the “original work,” Mr. Ram posed some questions for the conventional media — “Do you have gate-keeping at least for the old media which has gone online? Is gate-keeping legitimate? If so, what are the rules of the game for gate-keeping?”
Patrick Daniel of Singapore Press Holdings argued that “credibility is the key” in journalism and traced a linkage between this and the talent.
Referring to his account of how the press in the City-State had played a “nation-building role,” Mr. Ram said: “Who can dispute the fact that Singapore is a developed country which has got many things right?”
Speaking as a panelist of the “AMIC Distinguished Forum,” Mr. Ram said he would go by the view of the UNESCO that “the primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing.”
Outlining the various nuances of news coverage in developing societies and also “the emerging centrality of the internet,” he said “we have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what the truth means and what objectivity is all about.”
Kishore Mahbubani of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy chaired the Distinguished Forum, while Tony Tan Keng Yam, Chairman of Singapore Press Holdings, opened the conference. Indrajit Banerjee, AMIC Secretary-General, and Joe Foote, Chairman, Organising Committee of the World Journalism Education Congress, welcomed the delegates.
source: The Hindu
P. S. Suryanarayana
SINGAPORE: The “rules of the game” governing the global media scene “are changing in many places or have already changed,” and this “raises huge questions of accountability” about how news is covered.
The centrality of this aspect was brought into focus by The Hindu Editor-in-Chief N. Ram at a conference here on Monday on “the quest for new paradigms” in the media domain. Organised by the Singapore-based Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), at its 16th annual conference, the event also featured the first-ever World Journalism Education Congress. The general theme of the four-day meeting is “Media, Education, and Development.”
Chairing a plenary session on “Media freedom versus responsibility — East-West perspectives,” Mr. Ram said: “The discipline of verification is at the centre of journalism.” Noting that accountability, as an internal aspect of the media organisations, and social responsibility, as an “external” factor, “go together,” he said “there is no real line between them and they are just convenient terms of art.”
Mr. Ram said: “The tablet-of-stone era of journalism is coming to an end, at least in those places where The Guardian functions or The Washington Post, The New York Times, … and, to a large extent, even in developing countries. The moral was that you read it in the newspaper, it was a tablet of stone, you read it in the morning, and you waited till the next day or the next time the newspaper wrote on it to find out the truth. This is undergoing a profound change, not just because of the internet and digital media. But, it is the environment.”
The demand for accountability “is growing” in this context of “a highly interactive mode.” Moreover, journalists would “need to maintain a degree of independence or distance from those they seek to cover.” Such independence and freedom of expression would indeed go together under the rubric of reasonable restrictions in “a very diverse media ecology, globally speaking.”
On the East-West paradigm, he noted that the concept of Asian values was highly developed in Singapore, among other Southeast Asian and East Asian countries. “We respect their interesting responses to it. But, is there such a thing as Asian values, Eastern values. Does the civilisational and cultural context really detract from Article 19 freedoms [in India]? Are there societies which need more responsibility than freedom? Are there societies where independence is not that important when you practise journalism?”Responsibility and freedom
A media expert from Pakistan, Javed Jabbar, suggested that the norm should be “responsibility and media freedom,” instead of any notion of “versus” involving these two attributes. Tracing the role of Pakistan’s electronic media and other journalists in covering the ongoing crisis there, Mr. Jabbar said the strength of public opinion and the power of civil society were becoming evident. Yet, he thought the coverage should have been more balanced across the entire media spectrum.
Hans Henrik Holm of the Danish School of Journalism shone the spotlight on the recent cartoon controversy, which had enraged the Islamic world, to explain the nexus between freedom and responsibility. He said the protagonists of cartoonist-rights cited three arguments — the primacy of self-censorship over any other form of oversight, the importance of “secular” as different from religious values, and the norm of freedom of speech. The counter-arguments were that the cartoonist had incited hatred, stereotyped a community and adopted a double standard about what was permissible as free expression. While critics noted that journalists should be part of the solution and not the problem, the arguments that were not articulated at all, on either side of the divide, would relate to the basic issue of “who the journalists are responsible to.” Legal accountability on Net
Guy Berger, Rhodes University Professor in South Africa, unveiled a presentation about legal accountability on the internet. Commending the “original work,” Mr. Ram posed some questions for the conventional media — “Do you have gate-keeping at least for the old media which has gone online? Is gate-keeping legitimate? If so, what are the rules of the game for gate-keeping?”
Patrick Daniel of Singapore Press Holdings argued that “credibility is the key” in journalism and traced a linkage between this and the talent.
Referring to his account of how the press in the City-State had played a “nation-building role,” Mr. Ram said: “Who can dispute the fact that Singapore is a developed country which has got many things right?”
Speaking as a panelist of the “AMIC Distinguished Forum,” Mr. Ram said he would go by the view of the UNESCO that “the primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing.”
Outlining the various nuances of news coverage in developing societies and also “the emerging centrality of the internet,” he said “we have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what the truth means and what objectivity is all about.”
Kishore Mahbubani of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy chaired the Distinguished Forum, while Tony Tan Keng Yam, Chairman of Singapore Press Holdings, opened the conference. Indrajit Banerjee, AMIC Secretary-General, and Joe Foote, Chairman, Organising Committee of the World Journalism Education Congress, welcomed the delegates.
source: The Hindu
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