Is the line between a journalist and a politician blurring?

Soon after the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism awards shone the spotlight on some of the finest in the profession here this evening, that light was turned inwards to debate this subject. And at a panel discussion featuring senior journalists and politicians, the two swapped roles as they listened to each other interpret it through a range of questions: Does an editor, in the last years of his career, start drifting from the newsroom and begin working towards his/her Rajya Sabha seat? Is the line one of ideology or of convenience? Can a TV channel liberate itself from the tyranny of the TRP? Why’s a trainee journalist usually an idealist and as she moves up, gets increasingly cynical?

At the heart of the debate, said one of the moderators, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi, was the issue of conflict of interest. “This is a world of wearing many hats,” he said, calling for an “institutionalised mechanism” of disclosure where people who appear on a channel discussion or write an opinion piece in a newspaper are identified, along with their ideological leanings or business interests.

“On a recent show, someone was called a defence expert but was a member of the defence policy of a particular political party,” he said, adding that the viewer or reader shouldn’t be kept in the dark.

That’s a valid issue, said P Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu, but the “more important one was of journalism and politics” and the blinkers that a journalist so comfortably wears in a media organisation.

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