Journalism is one of the a finest professions for the stories that journalists have broken, for the regimes they have dethroned, for the lives they have saved, for the grievances they have addressed, for the bravery they have showed, for the courage they possess and for the information they give. A profession like journalism does not deserve to be defamed due to some people who have chosen this field without any passion for it. It’s the passion that drives one to work on a cold morning during winters. It’s the passion that makes us write and think at mid night when everyone else is sleeping. Journalism is not for those who seek white collar jobs, neither for the weak hearts. No doubt that the introduction of social media and citizen journalism has had a major impact on the field of journalism but that doesn’t mean that passion driven journalists lose their credibility or their value decreases. The action of copying news from the social media and wire services has to be condemned. It is no match to the work done by those who have been in this field for decades, who did journalism when there was no internet, no mobile phones and no public relation officers in the government departments. They did a lot of leg work, read a lot, researched a lot to file a single story
One senior journalist narrating his experience said: “There was an encounter near the Press Information Bureau and I covered the visuals while lying on the ground for one hour. When I got back home, my abdomen was hurting but my heart was pleased.” Table stories that are done by copying lines from Google and social media accounts of wire services are not stories but only a pieces of information. These stories can’t shake the regime or the men in power, nor can they put fear in the capitalist class of our society. The old school journalism must be adopted again by the new journalists so that they may earn the respect of people and the ruling class, because nowadays the ruling classes see journalists as brokers. Journalists are not paid only to write but to read, research, investigate. Everyone today is aware of what is trending on twitter but only a journalist who does leg work and investigates with passion and collects facts knows the story behind the events. We need to get back to paper in order to read between the lines because the massive flow of information on the digital platform often misguides the masses and journalist must not be among them. It is important to mention that journalists while doing their job should follow the ethics principles of journalism, show respect to the people and officials they are interviewing.
In a conflict zone like Kashmir it’s easy for a journalist to make money but it takes courage, determination, passion and faith to side with the truth, burry the desires and to earn respect. To have a principle stand is as important as oxygen is for living. At the same time a journalist must know how to write in a way where he doesn’t become the target of people and of the system, but conveys his message in a well-articulated and well mannered way. Instead of typing stories while lying in their beds journalists need to stay in newsrooms, discuss the news and try to read events between the lines, because “a noisy newsroom is an alive newsroom.” Young journalists must get back to the ways of old school journalism to regain the reputation of this profession and earn respect among the society. We have to keep in mind what great author Lord Northcliffe once said; “News is what somebody somewhere wants to burry, all the rest is advertising.” Journalists must stop acting like public relation officers and start to work as journalists. No doubt that this honorable profession is under siege for political reasons but journalists are also to blame and it’s the sole duty of a journalist to rescue it. It’s pertinent to mention here that only a journalist can do it. Forty decades ago If Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had decided to report burglary story as only burglary story and didn’t investigate it further, preferred rest instead of doing leg work, we wouldn’t have had the Watergate story, “the greatest reporting story of all the time” and the corrupt president of United States would have never resigned. The facts, and figures are things that give life to a story, sitting at a table and browsing Internet will never lead to “the greatest story”.