B.V Rao is the Editor with Governance Now, a fortnightly print magazine. It is a multi-media initiative for participatory reportage and analyses news related to governance of all institutions and processes that are vital to public life in India. Before joining Governance Now, he was the group editor at Zee News. He has been associated with the Indian Express, Free Press Journal, Times of India and DNA amongst other publications.
The discussion he initiated for the session was Journalism vs Activism. He began by raising the question of where to draw the line between journalism and activism. According to Rao, in simple terms, journalism can be defined as informing people about events while activism he defines as influencing events – not just events that are happening, but causing events to happen.
He says in life, everything is about lines and boundaries. We don’t stop to think about those lines that are there to see. But the lines we don’t see are what fascinate us. Imaginary it might be, important it still is. To have a meaningful life we must have boundaries. And drawing the line is a difficult task. It means different things to different people. So when does a journalist become an activist.
He sparked an intense debate in the session regarding the picture taken by Kevin Carter which won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 of the small girl crawling to the food camp in Sudan while a vulture waited in the background. Should he have gone beyond his profession and become an activist or did he do justice to his profession?
From early life we are taught to be good professionals, it is instilled in us. So when we are faced with a news story, your first instinct is to respond as a professional before as a human, because unfortunate as it is, the two sides are separate. So the question is, are we being inhuman? Or are we just being professional?
According to Rao in this profession we continually dehumanize ourselves, and look at everything through the prism of our profession. But there comes a time when journalists are faced with stories that could mean more than just a news update. They have a chance to make a difference to the injustices and perils of the society. There comes a time when the journalist can choose to become an activist. Although the term ‘activist’ comes with negative connotations, it doesn’t always have to be so. It is possible to make a difference.
However while stepping over this line; the session also raised the question of what prompts a journalist to take a stand on an issue? Very often a journalist is thought to be an activist while he is just prompted by a new, fresh angle to the story. But Mr Rao says that when a journalist intervenes in an event, perhaps something he sees going wrong, then to him there is very little difference between a journalist and an activist.
He closes the session laying down the thought that we will go through our lives, and all the knowledge of our fore fathers will be of no use to us. That the only line that matters is the line we draw for ourselves, and at the end of the day the only line that will matter to us is fairness.
(With inputs from Leah George, MMC Batch 2013)
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