It is the prerogative of the church to guide its flock in matters spiritual and political and we take no issue with it. Democracy and governance are important issues and the Church would not be doing its duty if it did not enjoin the faithful to actively participate in the democratic process and even proffer guidance on voting preferences. The Church does not name which political party to support but calls on the faithful to weigh the pros and cons, scrutinise the candidates, examine the policies of political parties and drops hints about the direction in which to proceed. As mentioned earlier, we take no issue with this process.
To this exertion, the Church through the Council for Social Justice and Peace, issued guidelines and the most disturbing of these guidelines is the one that totally undermines the media and diminishes its role in democracy. The passage in question reads, “The print and electronic media which is considered the fourth pillar of a democracy and is ethically required to maintain autonomy and report factual and unbiased news to the public, is now increasingly seen to be the mouthpiece of the government and corporates and driven by competition. Citizens therefore need to access other sources of alternative and reliable political information before coming to conclusions on any issue and before making political decisions or choices.”
In one stroke, the Church has painted the entire media (television and newspapers) with a black brush. In six lines of text, lifetimes of commitment to the profession of journalism by many, have been written off as dubious, irresponsible and unreliable. And citizens have been advised to rely on alternate sources. And what or who are these sources? Facebook, which was recently exposed for streaming fake news? Whatsapp, where messages are posted and reposted without scrutiny? The neighbour? The grocer? The fishmonger? The barber? Where can these alternate sources be found? The Church after striking down an entire profession should have at least taken the trouble to name a few alternate ones.
The media is integral to democracy and any attempt to take it out of the equation is an attack on democracy itself. Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States of America said: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
We are not paragons of virtue. We have black sheep as well. We commit errors and sometimes overplay the news, but taken as a whole the media in India and the world is quite reliable because we have been trained to scrutinise every story with the lens of truth. The processes of checking and re-checking have been put in place over decades, if not centuries. By suggesting that people should discard newspapers or media the Church has done the media and democracy a great disservice and is indirectly advocating an election based on misinformation and fake news. In this regard we stand with democracy, a free press and the right to differ and dissent.
