RIGHT TO INFORMATION
Role of Media
And
Citizenry
As in the previous Constitution, Interim Constitution also guarantees the right to information as a fundamental right of citizens but in reality the situation is different. From government to media, no one is serious to provide impartial and free flow of information to the common citizens. The government keeps everything secret and media writes everything looking at the corporate and ideological interests or to scandalize the character of individual. Despite the upsurge of the number of media and informed citizenry, one of the major challenges of the society is how to protect the right to information. For media, establishing long lasting trust worthiness and reputation as independent are major challenges
By KESHAB POUDEL
"Today's media, more than ever, hunts in a pack… It is like a feral beast just tearing people and reputations to bits," said British prime minister Tony Blair. While summing up his expression, British prime minister Blair lamented the role of media.
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Free media : Vanguards of democracy |
In his recently published article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, British journalist Polly Toynbee agrees with British prime minister Tony Blair's comment on media. Toynbee writes: "It is a fleet of runway mechanical diggers without driver, or brakes, beyond accountability or control even by those who nominally run them."
According to Toynbee, the newspaper agenda, slavishly followed by the BBC, reflects "a profoundly dystopic image of a society where nothing works, everything gets worse, public officials are inept, public service fail, tax is wasted, lethal dangers proliferate, and everyone conspires to lie about it. Then sententious editorials complain that the children are being locked in by frightened parents. News editors spike most stories that don't fit that simple template. That means good specialist correspondents at the BBC and in serious newspapers who know the complexity of their subjects in great depth hardly bother to offer any story that doesn't exaggerate some minor failings, leaving the bulk of an essentially favorable report as an afterthought. Good crime, health or education figures are distorted by reporting of the one indicator that has turned downwards."
This situation is not only unique to the oldest democracy of the world but a country like Nepal has also been facing similar kinds of problems. For the past few months, the Chief Justice of Supreme Court Dilip Kumar Poudel has been facing serious allegations from the media. Although the CJ is yet to clarify his position, the judiciary- one of the important institutions to protect the rights of citizens – is weakening.
Similarly, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala also appeared in controversy following his remarks on media. He complained that his views were misquoted by news media because of their lack of understanding of English language.
When there is contradiction and confusion about the news, credibility suffers a lot. If prime minister has credibility among the people, the media will fail its attempt to spread the lie. If the media is credible, prime minister, however powerful he may be, will be seen as a liar.
"Ultimately, it is not the money or power which can create a lasting impression in the minds of people. It is the credibility which is built up and earned slowly and gradually and step by step. The impact of media is so serious and far reaching that it has a record of creating Hitler as well as creating Nelson Mandela," said a political analyst.
Right to Information
Right to information is the one of the fundamental rights declared by the Constitution of Kingdom of Nepal 1990 and it has been reaffirmed in the present Interim Constitution also. According to article 16 of the previous constitution, every citizen shall have the right to demand and receive information on any matter of public importance.
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Supreme Court : Judiciary under pressure |
According to 1990 constitution, matters of public importance fell under right to information. Now under the Interim Constitution, the right to information has been enlarged. According to article 27 of the Interim Constitution, every citizen shall have right to demand and receive information on any matter of his own or any matter of public importance. But in practice it has been reduced while encountering day to day policy actions.
Persons are being scandalized by inquiry commission report headed by Krishna Jung Rayamajhi which in statuary terms is completely secret - but persons are being haunted as tainted based on that report.
"Right to information should not be denied or withheld simply because the government has some other issues in terms of priority. The basic information directly related to life, liberty and property of the citizens could be disseminated including whereabouts of persons and properties," said former attorney general Badri Bahadur Karki. "The government needs not provide all information to all the people but definitely the government needs to provide information related to particular individual and particular community. Otherwise, media and people start making guesses and spreading rumors. That would be ultimately more dangerous and injurious to the society at large."
Although media have been publishing contents of the report, the inquiry commission's report is not available to concerned people. Even governor of Nepal Rastra Bank Bijaya Nath Bhattarai or industrialist Dr. Roop Jyoti were refused their departure from the country on their business meeting abroad because they are supposedly named as culprit in the commission's report. But these persons are not allowed to see what is there in the report against them. Dr. Joyti, who went to Apex Court , was granted interim order in his favor some months back. Despite the order, he was again refused departure and again he went to the court with a plea that he has not been able to see what is there against him in the report.
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Parliament : Supermacy of Nominated Legislative |
"Had the provision of this Interim Constitution about the right to information been followed by the government, Bhattarai and Dr. Joyti would not have been detained without informing them about adequate facts and reasons. A person has a right to know about that thing which the state might have done or not done effecting his/her interest," said the analyst.
Even in some cases, media do not speak about themselves but one has to read through other media to know about the issue. For instance, publication of Kantipur daily, a leading daily was hampered by Maoist-affiliated trade union a few days ago. But, one had to read Gorkhapatra, a government daily, now under the command of Maoists, to know about the dispute in Kantipur.
Although media in Nepal has been stressing the need for independence and freedom, their actions are not always in keeping with that. Professionalism has not grown as desired while corporate or ideological interests prevail. Like the global trend, access to free flow of information is denied to overwhelming Nepalese.
According to former president of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, which he noted in his speech in 1999, five billion people have no access to a free press and the 1.2 billion who are increasingly served by a press in service more to private profit than the public interest.
Diminished Role
The state has failed in one aspect and media, too, has failed in its role to disseminate correct and credible information. It is in the interest of citizenry that the state is more open so that it could be held accountable for doing or not doing something legally essential.
Similarly, the media has a social obligation to impart true and credible information to the people. Both the state as well as media discards unavoidable obligations towards citizens of the country to get informed and have proper and balanced opinions of their own regarding the state and community at large.
The central purpose of journalism is to tell the truth so that people will have the information that they need to be sovereign. This is the area where media lags behind. From Maoists to other political parties and individuals, all have complained the role of media.
According to media experts, journalism needs to provide something unique to a culture –independent, reliable, accurate and comprehensive information that citizens require. It is impossible to maximize political stability, economic growth and democracy without free flow of information.
"One of fundamental weaknesses of Nepali media is that we still lack the practice of healthy competition on the basis of pluralism. Perhaps this is because of frequent political instability. When we can still find everyone trying to install their own mouthpiece," said Rajendra Dahal, chairman of Press Council. "Everyone wants his/her own microphone instead of using a common one."
Category of Media
Media in Nepal are generally categorized in various headings. Government media, mission media (Ideological and party media), business or corporate or professional media, scandalous or blackmailing media.
With the restoration of democracy in Nepal 1990, corporate sector jumped into the media sector investing huge amounts of money. Most of the broadsheet dailies, television channels and some FM radio stations are controlled by them.
The mission media are mostly run by political parties with certain ideology. All the communist parties have their own papers. Democratic parties, too, have ideologically close media. There are some tabloids which prefer to publish news scandalizing the events. Compared to other media, corporate houses have done a lot better in supporting the professionalism. One can criticize corporate media for its biased reporting but one cannot afford to ignore them.
"Every instrument and weapon can be used or misused so is with the media also. One way, media is a source of information. In negative way, it can be used as an instrument of disinformation. Due to the development of technology in print as well as electronic and audio visual, its ambit has increased tremendously. If it is runs through a professional commitment keeping in view the larger interest of the community, it has significant role to impart information and keep the community aware of things it requires," said the analyst.
Upsurge of Media
According to Department of Information, there are more than 4286 newspapers including dailies, weeklies, fortnightlies, 52 FM radio stations, four television channels and dozens of websites. There are 313 dailies, 106 weeklies, 10 half weeklies, 300 fortnightly,1313 monthly, 267 bi-monthly, 419 quarterly, 76 yearly, 60 half yearly and 22 four-monthly papers. The number of media continues to increase.
"Media's numerical growth is alright and welcome but it has yet to mature and behave responsibly," said former attorney general Badri Bahadur Karki, who led a high level task force on government media. "Government media too needs to mature and serve in the public interest."
Along with their number, the influence of media, too, has expanded. "As its influence has increased much in day to day life of the people, its negative importance is as an instrument of disinformation for creating mass hysteria and molding the public opinion according to the needs of the corporate interests which may have any state or other interests behind it," said the political analyst.
How to Make Media Responsible
How to keep the role of media responsible and useful to the community is a big problem. Even for developed democracy, these kinds of problems are haunting.
When an outgoing prime minister of an oldest and stable democracy like Britain has such kind of anguish with the irresponsible role of media, one can simply imagine what could be the experience of persons in the street as well as in the seats of power in newly born and fragile democracies like Nepal .
"One thing is quite clear, Nepali media has not been able to lure professionals with high caliber – it is neither financially nor intellectually attractive enough. Furthermore, although media has produced highly skilled professionals through years of experience and exposure, it has failed to retain those human resources," said Dahal.
A responsible media with a positive impact in the community has to compete with others and survive in a choice of free competition. As an economic law, bad coins remove the good coins from circulation - so is the situation with the press.
A media with sensational headlines and topics get prompt response than the ones with sober headlines and balanced viewpoints. Although, this is the situation in developed countries also, it is much more serious in developing democracies. This creates a problem of survival of media in the market economy and an open society.
"There are two parallel currents reflected in media growth in Nepal . One is the current of professionalism which is more dedicated and has talent coming in. Parallel to it, runs another current of journalism in which the promotion of corporate interest, yellow journalism and blackmail journalism are the dominating trends. Future of Nepalese journalism will depend on which trend ultimately wins," said Yubaraj Ghimire, senior journalist and editor of Samaya (Nepali Weekly) and News Font (English weekly).
Party's Interests
Western democracies have their own problems of corporate policies of media in the big business interests. But in a newly born democracy like Nepal , besides the corporate interest in the media, there are political parties' interests also in dominant position.
With a demand to form union, CPN-Maoist affiliated Trade Union disrupted the publication of Nepal Samacharpatra daily and Mahanagar eveninger of Kamana Publications for five days just last week. Along with their own mouthpiece, Maoists are said to be pressuring corporate media not to go against them. "Threat to Nepal Samacharpatra is a first step towards this direction," argued a media expert.
Compared with other liberal democratic parties, communist parties are very specific to have media as their party mouthpiece to propagate their ideology and promoting the party interest.
Role of Citizenry
People from developed west say that a section of Nepalese have a habit of analyzing role of some mysterious external elements in their politics. They say that Nepalese don't realize their own strength to overcome that problem.
"Compared with the developed infrastructure and back up supports from the enlightened citizenry, well trained and organized bureaucracy, institutions of administrative, judicial systems and highly developed economic infrastructures, it is not the same in a country like Nepal which is in a pre-industrial phase where all infrastructures of administration, judiciary, media and other paraphernalia of a well, neat, organized and developed society. It is unjust and unfair to expect the role of a Nepali citizen like that of a highly developed system of the western democracy," said the analyst.
Even if there is enough political enlightenment and awareness, a person in Nepal does not have back up support of developed infrastructures like that of the west. The quality of citizenry in Nepal lags behind in many things which are available in other countries of even South Asia region.
However, the adaptability and flexibility in character which Nepalese citizenry has are something quite positive and praise worthy.
It is impossible to have one hundred percent credible media anywhere in the world, even in developed democratic. Judging Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's formula, if the media is 60 percent good, it is good. If it is 60 percent bad, it is bad. One has to feel proud of being rated 60 percent good. If media coverage is 60 percent good, no one including the prime minister of highly stable and developed democracy needs to complain about its role of imparting the free flow of information.
