Born On A Cusp

I think it was two weeks back. I tuned in to the evening news only to get a shock from the sight of a woman being mobbed here in Delhi, her sari top misplaced, revealing a shoulder, hair disheveled, face contorted with what clearly was fear. Policemen surrounded her, attempting to cover her from being lynched, whisking her away to safety.

The woman was a maths teacher and the mob was a group of (obviously angry) parents. What triggered the violent attack?

A ‘sting’ operation of a news channel showing the teacher — through footage and conversations taken with a hidden camera — purportedly offering her students for prostitution.

Based solely on that television report, the irate parents went after her and hurt her; she was sacked from her school; and she was charged with a criminal offense.

Then followed revelation after revelation, both from the police and media organisations (not the one that conducted the ‘sting’, of course) — saying, basically, that the sting was a fake. The reporter — out to get a big name for himself — colluded with a few other people to entrap the teacher, pretending to be someone he’s not, and editing the footage to fit his story.

This story gives me the goose bumps from start to finish.

Seeing that footage of this woman being mobbed, it bothered me no end that right then and there she could have died in the hands of those people, driven as they were to blind rage by a television report without having knowledge of all the facts. I am all for fighting for what is right. But to judge what is wrong based on two minutes of video clips, without ascertaining the whole story, is totally a different matter. It is scary.

And this reporter? Having been a professional journalist in my previous incarnation, it makes me grit my teeth in anger that this man did what he did, knowing how important genuine undercover journalism is to a democracy.

Indeed, coming from the Philippines — where certain genres of journalism similarly employ ‘sting’ tactics to get to the truth — I am worried about the implications of this episode to how Indian authorities will now move in response. Already, there is a proposal to legislate a Broadcast Code that will — according to most intelligent sections of Indian media — act as Big Brother to television. This fake sting incident will surely give authorities more reason to enforce regulations, which will not necessarily benefit the development of a truly free and responsible media.

Undercover journalism, if conducted with the supreme public interest in mind — and after all other means have been exhausted — can ferret out the truth and help this world become a better place. In the Philippines as well as here in India, undercover journalism has created a huge impact on many areas of public life. When public officials refuse to open themselves to scrutiny, journalists are often compelled to use other means to get the facts and make sense of them.

But this television ’sting’ is such a shame. I am delighted that, last I read, the information and broadcasting industry has issued the TV channel a showcause notice, asking it to explain why it showed a programme “that was based on half-truths, slandered an individual and provoked violence.”

So who’s stung now?