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Panel Discussion: Editorial Leadership in an Age of Disinformation
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Team Alpha
3:57
Kumar shows his concern by saying, "Media as the fourth pillar of democracy has shifted somewhere. There is a huge shift in these scenarios. You can't name one person who is ready to stand up and speak. Do they think that the government has fulfilled all demands of the public or is it something else?"
3:58
Kumar underlines the situation by saying, "Media is called the fourth pillar of democracy but somewhere it has become the 5th pillar."
4:00
Prasad explains, "I think 90% of the audience don't know about emergency as they were not born then. The emergency had a start date and an end date. It was manfully enforced by the prime minister. The difference between then and the emergency we have now. We don't know when this started. Look at Kashmir, for 16 days no newspapers have been published. Reporters can't phone or access the internet. Presses are all closed. So there is a huge credibility problem. The so called national consensus we had with Indira Gandhi has crumbled now. There is no opposition because the corporate ownership with these news medias are huge. One of India's richest men, Mukesh Ambani, owns so many stakes in media channels."
4:01
Prasad adds his concern, "Forget media, where's the political opposition? Compare the number of people in Hong Kong protests and the people protesting here because of Kashmir. Are we going to find the feet to stand up and say we can't take this anymore? There's a huge propulsion of forces that we're unable to recognize. I'd blame Hindutva that is in the hearts of so many people, that okays this."
4:02
Kumar throws a question at Shelley, "What differences do you see in the vibrancy and the methods of the media houses in the US and in India with respect to that?"
4:03
Shelley argues, "One of the fundamental tenets of journalism in US is the ability to speak the truth to power. However that has become as a force of evil to million Americans because of Trump's rants. Most Americans might believe anything he says."
4:04
Shelley adds, "Back in the election night 2016, where l was watching the election results, I concluded that the mainstream media are bifocal and don't spend as much time in the middle or Southern America where Trump can do no wrong in the eyes of the voters there. It's not just our job to present facts but to ensure their truth is what I still believe."
4:05
Shelley asserts, "The three main cable networks of US all have responsible journalists working for them. There are also opinion journalists working for them and people get confused between the news coming from two sources."
4:06
4:07
Shelley compares it to what he saw in India, "In India, I saw all English channels discussing the Kashmir situation and some are so pro Modi and anti-Pakistan and some were completely doing the opposite. I think in India or in the US, we're seeing less and less of balanced journalism and we are giving more attention to opinion media and what they are saying."
4:08
Kumar asks Sinha whether he wants to add something on media credibility.
4:09
Sinha answers, "The US prefers truth to power. In India a lot of journalists would love to but can't. This is because of the business models. There is a lot of blogging in the US compared to that of India."
4:11
Shelley opines, "In the US as an entity, journalism is a business as well as public service and there is a very hard line between journalism and advertising. I also believe you can take advertising and still be responsible journalists. For broadcast networks, they were required to devote some time according to government regulations to news time. There are a lot of organisations depending on ads but are still doing responsible journalism."
4:12
Kumar puts forward that America has the first amendment of the constitution to protect free press.
4:13
Prasad says, "Your question as to why Indian media has crumbled and not the US is because America has the first amendment. It covers the media with a blanket. It protects the media. The difference is the institutions. No matter what Trump says, all sectors of the society have stood up. Here, even the institutions have crumbled with the media. The Supreme court of India had the strength to stand up. In 2019, when the editor of a newspaper says please let me publish, the supreme court doesn't care. All media houses have silenced themselves as well. There is always a over supply of one, and an under supply of another"
4:14
Kumar opens the session for the audience to ask questions.
4:16
Someone from the audience asks, "There are institutions who represent the news in a satirical format but do you think general people perceive them as a satire?"
4:17
Shelley says that an American probably can differentiate between news and satire.
4:18
Shelley puts forward an example, "There was show called Smothers Brothers and every show took on the Vietnam war and the crimes. The show got cancelled and was one of the darkest days of democracy and it broke my heart."
4:19
Shelley reiterates that satire has a very important place in American democracy and that they have to help the public understand that sometimes.
4:20
Sinha introduces an interesting perspective, "It is not only the people who don't understand satire but also the journalists who don't understand satire."
4:21
Sinha, too, pulls up an example. "There was a satirical piece about how a man went to a mosque and farted because of which he was beheaded."
4:22
Sinha recalls, "In response to the Indian army using a human shield to protect themselves from stone pelters, Paresh Rawal had tweeted "It should have been Arundhati Roy sitting on the bonnet" because of her comments about the Indian Army at the time."
4:23
Sinha comments on fact-checking, "There was a rumour that there were fatwas against Rohit Sardana. However on fact checking, I came to know that there were no fatwas against Rohit. On backtracking I found that a small news website called newspool.com which was managed by a 18 year old boy made Rs.40000 approximately every month by publishing fake news. On being asked why does he do this, the boy said that nobody cares about genuine news. However, the fake news he publishes gets a lot of traffic on his website enabling him to earn quite a lot of money. Thus even an 18 year old knows how fake news travels fast and generates interest."
4:25
Prasad responds, "I hope you go back and see the 2012 file where they said that Kim Jong Un is the sexiest man alive and China ran a story on it. Orsen Welles, who directed Citizen Kane, made a spoof which created havoc. Satire has become a source of news."
4:28
Audience question, "It is an age of disinformation and as Sinha told that his news channel is run on public fund and and as the public also doesn't have news literacy.  So is there a need for a person or an organization to stand there and debunk the false news?"
4:29
Audience question, "Prasad you had a story in 2016 which almost took your job ,so if this can happen to you then can happen to anyone. How does anyone come forward from that situation or avoid those situations?"
4:30
Shelley responds to the first question, "There should be one person to champion for press freedom and can articulate the way which resonates with the public."
4:31
Prasad answers the second question, "That's the difference between a good editor and a bad. A good editor always stands by his reporters. Indian Journalism rots from the top, not from bottom. We have amazing reporters. We don't have good editors who have the spine to stand by the reporters. I pray to god you all get editors who stand by you."
Audience question, "There is a thin line separating everything. Where does the thin wire fall between curating news, fact checking and debunking misinformation?"
4:32
Prasad answers fittingly, "Journalism has become a low cost operation for most organisations. There's a prominent newspaper in India, which discourages journalists from going out of their offices. While Indian newspapers profit shoots up, the journalism scale wobbles. Every single organizations needs to have a gate keeper. Unless that happens, the issue will spin out of control."
4:33
Kumar asks for another round of questions.
Audience question, "There are reporters who would move from there position against posting fake news. Where do you think the editor or publisher stands in this position handling the fake news?"
4:35
Audience question, "What is the reason that an entire generation of journalists are giving in to the government? Why is that happening so much right now and how it is so different from US?"
4:37
Audience question, "How do we as media organizations, not fall into situations where we fall back on technology and our news doesn't reach the masses in the right time. How does real news cope up in the technology race?"
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