MEDIA VERSUS THE LAW

I decided to create this blog after informal meetings with friends from two professions, journalism and law. As a Professor of Media Law and Journalism in the University of Mumbai, I have had several so-called learned people ask me why I shifted to practising law from being a working journalist for over 20 years.

I take pains to explain to them that journalism and law are not disparate professions. They are as different as soda is from water or love is from affection or cheese is from milk.

Having made this point, I find that those from the legal profession hardly know how journalists function and journalists know little or nothing about the demand of the legal profession.

That is an unending tragedy. Simply because both professions strive to deliver justice -- judges and lawyers by compiling evidence which is admissible under the provisions of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, whereas journalists try to publish what they see as justice by not infrequently relying on what is told to them by their sources. This is what we in the legal profession would term "hearsay."

There have been occasions during my career in journalism, when I have seen a few taciturn judges tell journalists not to quote them in their reports, or perhaps not publish a report at all. This is a great injustice done to the right to know exercised by the public at large. On the other hand, I have seen a few journalists who traverse all boundaries of ethical norms and attack a helpless magistrate on the basis of pure hearsay.

So, if both professions have a lot in common, why the conflict ? This is because the member of each profession sees things from his/her viewpoint alone. Also, journalists do not have the authority of the judiciary or the members of the legal profession when they address a court.

The "patrakar" as we call individual journalists, clad in kurta-pyjama, with a slingbag over the shoulder and clutching a ballpoint and notepad, are not imbued with any official authority to record sensitive arguments in a court room. It is only those lawyers who seek publicity, who will clarify and elucidate various points of law for the journalist who does not have a legal background. Journalists fall easy prey to such uncrupulous lawyers and describe their legal sources as "senior advocates" or "distinguished advocates'" or worse still, " eminent lawyers."

Needless to say, in journalism as in law, there are no "eminent' and "distinguished" practitioners. Those who are in the public eye do not need to be called "distinguished." Their work distinguishes them from their mediocre counterparts. They are always in the middle of action, always in the public eye.

Do we need to call Arun Shourie, or Barkha Dutt, or Karan Thapar eminent ? Undoubtedly, they have a huge staff under them to do the nitty gritty of research and take care of the small insignificant details. But these people like a Soli Sorabjee, or the late Nani Palkhivala or the late Justice Bakhtavar Lentin do not need the epithet "eminent" before their names in the same way that tiger does not need to be called ferocious.

But why this diatribe ? Just so that if you happen to be a journalist, or a writer, for heaven's sake donot "plug" or "puff" somebody who craves for publicity. If a lawyer gives you information and spends over an hour with you in his chamber to explain the nuances of Section 52 of the NArcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, publish his or her name by all menas. But simply call him Advocate XYZ. Or Dr ABC, NOT repeat NOT " the eminent neurosurgeon Dr ABC."

What you do not realize is that by calling a mediocre lawyer "eminent" you are doing a disservice to the lay public who will have to fork out four times more money to avail of his or her services. Get it ?

TO BE CONTINUED.....

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