Media Ethics and New Technologies -I

In recent times I have heard many journalists and the trainee journalists contesting those who preach ethics and morality to them as they feel that there is a wide gap in what is being preached and what is the norm in the field. In fact, journalism in India was considered as a mission. It had a mission of liberating India from the clutches of colonialism in the days of freedom struggle. After independence, it became a profession having its own hazards. Consequently, the practicing journalist feel that what was true for certain values and norms during independence and a few year after it, is no longer valid for the situations of the present day journalism.

The debate on morals, values and practices in any profession is not new. Professionals in journalism have also been discussing this issue for several years. Recently, this debate reopened in India when a dot com company called Tehelka, at first, exposed the match fixing in Cricket and then exposed the so called "defense scam" with the help of hidden cameras. The question that came up again and again in this debate was whether the use of hidden camera was ethical for doing an investigative story; and should it not be proper to take the shots of people when they are aware that they are being videotaped.

There are people who feel that the dot com company was not very serious in its journalism as they didn't even bother to check, recheck and verify the facts. Some feel that it is unethical to catch people unaware. Some people also think that their whole journalism of this company is feeding itself on sensationalism. On the other end, there are people who feel that the end justifies the means. Some people also feel that there is no breach of ethics of journalism as the journalist who caught these people unaware were in the role of businessmen..

The convergence of video and internet has created newer possibilities for journalism. The television is still in the process of learning ways to inform and opiate through opinions, though it has already started feeling a bit traditional and different from print, radio and films. The print has largely converted its practices into ethics in spite of the fact that print itself has been severely affected by the video journalism practices. It means that on one hand we have journalistic traditions that could become the "theory" of journalistic ethics, and on the other hand the newer media have created new situations that demand a new code of conduct- a new ethics that shall hold good for days ahead. The debate of media ethics would have to be taken seriously by media persons, specially in the wake of new technologies. Needless to say that codes do not prevent people from deviating from them when it becomes necessary to deviate in larger interest.

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