Harsha Bhogle gets it right: State of journalism in India has put us in 'dangerous times'

Probably surprised by the rant that NDTV’s Consulting Editor Barkha Dutt unleashed against her one-time colleague and Times Now Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami on her Facebook page on Wednesday, cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle on Friday expressed his disappointment on the sludge that has taken over today’s journalism.

In a thoughtful status update on his Facebook page, Bhogle wrote, “There was a time when being a journalist, a bit like being a judge, meant that you were bestowed a certain responsibility. People believed in you and that trust had to be worn at all times.”

Adopting a non-partisan approach, the cricket commentator said that pace and competition were always part and parcel of the business of news even in its pre-digital avatar but it was taken to a slimier zone by the advent of social media.

“But news was competition too and so you needed to stay ahead. You did that by getting news early but you were still truthful, or at least a majority felt the need to be so. Then social media arrived and with Twitter, Facebook but increasingly with WhatsApp, everyone is a journalist but without the responsibility of being one,” he said.

Given the state of journalism in India, there would hardly be anyone who would disagree with Bhogle’s views on the “responsibility” aspect.

Gone are the days when media was simply the messenger. It has now become a terrain of the tempestuous with credibility, its biggest asset at one time, under constant threat of being shot down.

“And so the onus of sifting between the dignified and the truthful, and the provocative and the untrue, is now no longer with the disseminator of the news but with the receiver,” Bhogle said.

In his Facebook update, the cricket commentator clearly conveyed his reservations against the trend of the news maker getting sidelined by the news giver.

“When mass media abdicates its responsibility, when the provider of the news seeks to become the news and therefore needs to act provocatively to attract attention (the very act he/she should be filtering out), we are in dangerous times,” Bhogle said.