Text Credit: Shibul Pavithran

Photographs by: krithilitfest.com

Sashi Kumar’s session at Krithi International Festival of Books and Authors was an enlightening experience. Sashi is a powerful media personality from Kerala, was the founder of India’s first regional satellite TV channel Asianet, he was the first West Asia correspondent of The Hindu in the mid-eighties, has acted in Malayalam movies, written extensively on Media, cinema and, culture and currently the chairman of Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. Sashi spoke about the history of journalism, the news media, public interest, and market paradigm. He gave an interesting insight into the emergence of the public sphere around the 1600s which heralded the early beginnings of journalism. The factors that determined the emergence of a public sphere were many: capitalism was moving to the new realm, industrialization, and technology were emerging and The Gutenberg revolution had already happened. Religious transformations were happening (the church was challenged for the first time) and many more reasons that created the initial impetus.

He explained how there was a desperation in the world to speak out against the system, rather than blindly following it. He elaborated on how ‘penny posts’ system began in the United States, providing a way to transfer messages across long distances, just for a penny (the reach was established). It played a key role in the struggle for independence in the United States. Also, The journalistic reforms happening in the US were the counter to the draconian steps taken by the British to suppress journalism.

He also spoke about Karl Marx being a fantastic journalist in spite of being a world-famous economist and philosopher. Marx was a European correspondent for the New York Tribune from 1851 to 1862 where he contributed close to 500 articles and editorials. He ranged over the whole political universe, analyzing social movements and agitations from India and China to Britain and Spain.

Even in India during the time of the Emergency, the news media played a crucial role, by going against the diktat of Indira Gandhi. It was Ramnath Goenka from The Indian Express who stood against her. Goenka’s Indian Express was the only newspaper that covered the atrocities by Congress in the name of Emergency.

Sashi Kumar went on to highlight the present times we live in where the news media in India is based on business and ratings, with lots of gimmick and commerciality and less of information and truth. He emphasized the need to change the face of journalism in India, which is ruled by corporates and political parties, and for the urgent need of freedom and protection of journalists. He signed off with a message for journalists by reading out a verse from the Bible, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his? savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men.”- Mathew 5:13.

The news media is silenced when they talk truth to power. How do you think we can challenge these powerful forces and what would be the right technique to deal with them?

One suggestion could be, to bring journalism under a  specific provision act by amending in the constitution, like it was done United States Of America. So it becomes a constitutional right, but even that will not help when street mob’s are in the picture.  So there should be a greater association of the public with journalism. Nowadays, the people with power are able to pull down the news media because the public is also skeptical about journalists and journalism. Especially when we are going through a fascist time like now, this is certainly a vulnerability that journalists will have to go through, they have to be really careful and the state must really protect them because if there are no journalists then there is no democracy.

One quote that you would like to say to sum it all?

I think journalism must be all about change, creating a change in the society, because information without transformation is sheer gossip. We have to examine how much of our media is pure gossip and how much of it is information that is meaningful to our lives.

What advice would you like to give aspiring journalists?

I think aspiring journalists have to rethink the role of journalism – the practice of journalism, new forms of journalism; they have to reimagine journalism, because the journalism that we have practiced for centuries, is suddenly looking fatigued and maybe even irrelevant to our times. Journalism is becoming a part of the problem and not the solution. So journalists should think of ways where journalism can become the solution to what we are facing rather than adding to the problems we are facing.   

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