Journalists don't need brains, media tells Press Council chief Katju news
17 January 2012

There was considerable debate between Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju and media persons on Monday over Katju's remark a few months back that most journalists have a "very poor intellectual level".

Katju, a retired Supreme Court judge, had said in late October, "The general rut [of journalists] is very low. Frankly, I don't think they have much knowledge of economic theory or political science or literature or philosophy. I don't think they have studied all this." (See: Press Council chief calls journalists dumb; seeks more powers)

The panellists at the award conference in Mumbai, comprising well-known editors and columnists, asked Katju if one needed to have read Thomas Paine and Voltaire to be a good reporter.

They panelists broadly agreed that the ability to quote Ghalib, Emile Zola or Dickens - or even Dizzy Gillespie - is not a prerequisite for good journalism. More important is a nose for breaking news.

Tavleen Singh, a columnist for The Indian Express, reversed the guns on Katju: pointing to judicial delays she said the judge should first look at ails in the judicial system, of which he was part of until recently.

"It's important for the Press Council to play a proper role. You have to make norms for the media, not tell us whether Dev Anand's death is front page [news] or not," she added.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Centre for Policy Research and also a writer for The Indian Express, said more than the IQ of journalists, it was important to understand the culture of media coverage that sends politicians rushing to the well of the houses of Parliament.

"As a society, we are corrupted more by media publicity than by money," he said. "Reporting an accurate fact is far more important that knowing Ghalib."

Political scientist and Brown University professor Ashutosh Varshney said reporters need "moral clarity" more than anything else to painstakingly break stories.

Categorising journalism into hard news reporting and opinion writing, he said that while editors and columnists may need to be intellectual, "knowledge of Dickens or Zola is not needed to report on the 2G scam".

In the audience, senior BJP leader L K Advani made a rare intervention, saying that as a former journalist himself, what worries him is the "lack of courage and ethics among those in the profession; not intellect". Journalism, Advani said, needs to be based on "courage, ethics and truth".

Making his closing remarks at the end of the debate, Katju quoted stanzas from the Hindu text Ramcharitmanas to say that just as Hanuman loyally served Ram, the media must not forget its duty towards the country.

The media has three roles to play: "To give information, to give entertainment, and "leadership to the public in the realm of ideas. But if 90 per cent of the coverage is devoted to entertainment, and a mere 10 per cent to issues that affect the country, such as malnutrition and unemployment, how will the media provide that leadership?" he tellingly wondered.





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Journalists don't need brains, media tells Press Council chief Katju