If you do not have a good grasp of journalistic principles, you are bound to flounder in doing a sting operation, which is a tightrope walk on journalistic ethics. Where Mangalam television erred seriously was in the misrepresentation of facts. Its story claimed that Transport Minister A. K. Saseendran’s conversation aired by it was with a housewife. Confident of the success of its manipulation, CEO Ajith Kumar told another TV channel later that his reporters were not involved, only to be forced to make a retreat later. He admitted that it was a sting operation by its staff member. It is also notable that the reporter concerned did not present the story herself as done in legitimate sting operations. Besides, the part of her dialogue with the Minister was edited out.
Apparently, the channel was not keen to probe further to find out whether the Minister would be willing to misuse his office and grant undue favours for sexual favours. Going by details that have come out, it was just a honey trap, and what we get is a glimpse of a side of the Minister’s character that, at best, raises questions of propriety and morality. Its prime purpose was to tickle and create a sensational debut for the channel. There was little legitimacy for the story. Professionalism was absent. The judicial enquiry ordered by the government is a fair attempt at fact-finding though one cannot be optimistic about what ultimately would happen to the recommendations of the judicial commission, given the history of such commissions. (Reports of several commissions are gathering dust at the Government Secretariat.)
Considering the importance of freedom of the Press and larger interests of media and society, it is better for the government not to use the police to probe the issues until the judicial commission submits its recommendations. However, police investigation into specific and credible complaints from individuals need not wait. When media coverage of ISRO spy case peaked, Ajith Kumar had faced some critical questions in a TV programme about media coverage of the case. His puerile explanation was that news reports are called ‘stories’ in English. That translates into ‘Kadha’ (fiction) in Malayalam. What we do are stories, he asserted. But such gross ignorance of the basics did not prevent his being elected president of Trivandrum Press Club. Till now, there has been hardly any peer pressure on journalists in the capital city if they breached journalistic ethics. While the majority of journalists in the city are not grossly unethical, many will not mind some favours from those seeking publicity, in disregard to guidelines issued by the Press Council of India.
(This is the personal opinion of the author)
