Balance Between Media Freedom and Professional Responsibility
In a world heavily dominated by the media, and especially living in a country where the media has the utmost influence on the general populace, all it takes is one piece of information or rumor to spark a news which will spread like wildfire across the nation. On the face of it, it seems that only the most influential and elite personalities have a stronghold on what and how the media portrays certain news and manipulates it in whichever way the concerned party deems fit. However, having said that, on a closer look into the world of media and journalism, one will find that, professionally, the field of media has a lot more to it than just painting a pretty, or an adverse, picture to showcase to the world. When an individual takes up on the journey towards becoming a journalist, or entering into any line in the media field, there are certain social responsibilities that the person must come through on when being in a position where he or she has to inform the viewers about a certain aspect of global or domestic issues. This social responsibility to the society has a lot of weightage considering how easy it is to mislead people, and taking into account the adverse consequences that one may have to face if held accountable for providing misinformation. At the top of any media person’s list of priorities should be the responsibility of providing the audience with correct and unbiased information. What we see very commonly in today’s day and age is manipulation at the hands of various media channels, who have resorted to taking sides of different political parties, and hence, producing information which works in the favor of the respective parties that they support. This should not be the case, however, because, where the concerned media workers have the right to freely voice their opinions and observations, at the same time the media person holds certain responsibilities and duties towards the viewers to provide them with information that does not wrongly mislead them and isn’t put up to debase another individual or group.
“The question of press freedom is as eminent as is that of media responsibility. Both questions attract very easy answers. Any decent modern society must respect the freedom of the press, and the right of the public to be informed. Secondly, the responsibility of the journalist, or of any decent person, is to tell the truth.”[ CITATION Mor15 \l 1033 ]
Over the years, the true meaning of media has been lost in the midst of bribery, nepotism, and the social stigma of class division that people have attached themselves to. An example of the way the media has been used to mislead the world in largely unrecoverable ways can be seen in the global image of Pakistan, which has been labeled as a country of terrorism. Pictures are spread around where bearded men with Kalashnikovs are seen roaming about the streets of the country. Videos are produced and shown on a global scale to portray in front of the rest of the world of how these terrorists have taken over the country, posing the worst forms of threat to the nation’s security. What is even worse, however, that these terrorists are portrayed as men who kill in the name of Islam, and hence the media has to a large extent succeeded in spreading what is more widely known as “Islamophobia”, referring to that image of the religion which leads an unaware person to believe that terror and aggression is all that Islam as a religion teaches its followers. However, what the global channels and newspapers fail to show to the world, or deliberately leave out, is the reality of the situation in Pakistan, and the reality of the teachings of Islam. Contrary to popular belief, Islam is purely a religion of peace and tolerance, an aspect that the global media, especially the advocates of western policies, have failed to inform the world of. When a foreigner is asked to visit the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, he or she is instantly faced with a dilemma, a rush of skepticism, and feels that returning safely from a place like Pakistan would be akin to a miracle. This is the result of the impact of media, and the failure on the part of professionals to show the true picture of the country to viewers all over the world. It is only upon personally coming to Pakistan and exploring the true beauty that lies within the country, in terms of landscapes, culture, heritage, and the warmth of the people, that the visitor realizes how he or she fell prey to the one-sided picture of Pakistan that the media flaunted.
Professionally, as is a necessity in all occupations, there needs to be a balance between personal freedom and the responsibility that one has towards work. The common code of work ethics entails that the professional’s freedom should be such that the person can think freely and can instill unbiased, and unaffected thoughts into actions at work. Furthermore, it the aspect of honesty at work, particularly in the media field, is crucial to success in this field, because false news or forged information can lead to contradictions in the journalist or anchorperson’s statements. And this is perhaps a media personality’s worst nightmare, and a blot on his or her image and integrity. In the words of journalist Arshad Zubairi, “contradiction of news was like a slap across a reporter’s face, which sowed that he did not make the news with proper consultation and investigation”. [ CITATION Med \l 1033 ] This is where the role of sources comes in. When working in the media, the sources that a journalist gathers his information from are of utmost important, and should be genuine and authentic. Not to mention traceable, because unknown sources are often shelved into the backseats, for they hold no importance in the eyes of the majority of the viewers, and are often waved off as mere rumors.
What can be seen as perhaps the most important reason as to why various media platforms resort to using falsified and made up information to their benefit is that media houses nowadays are more concerned about business rather than social causes. As mentioned before, the media, especially various news channels, are quite literally sold out to leaders or the elite classes. In order to avoid these kinds of discrepancies from the truth, there needs to be a regulatory body in place which is in charge of keeping a check and balance on the sources and on the various media platforms to only provide correct and true information. However, to implement such a functioning body is an entirely other issue, one which is close to impossible in today’s age, especially when it comes to controlling every and any form of media. Regulation always comes from authority, but when the authorities are guilty of fueling misinformation and wrongly using the media as a means to exploit the general population, moral ethics and professional responsibility take a back seat.
When it comes to media freedom, any journalist should know the difference between blind loyalty and patriotism. The freedom of speech should not be exploited, and should be used as a tool to rightly provide the world with true pieces of evidence and news that does not mislead them to only side with what the journalist wants them to believe. Another aspect of the moral imperative in media responsibility is determining what matters, and valuing those aspects and issues which are fundamentally shared amongst all individuals, and are collectively contributed to by all humanity. Noam Chomsky writes, “The responsibility of the writer as a moral agent is to try to bring the truth about matters of human significance to an audience that can do something about them.” In the politics of media, the unavoidable truth about the prevalence of corruption to protect reputation cannot be ignored. But this means of defending one’s integrity is clearly wrong in the moral sense of things, and in the world of politics, one has to be extremely careful at every step, because a lie which can one day be used as a way to flaunt one’s unjust fame and popularity, can also be used by another opposing party to shatter the public image of the concerned party within minutes.
To use the power of the media to one’s personal dividends is one thing, but to impress this power upon a person or group to wrongly bash on a target person is where the professional responsibility has failed to maintain the truest meaning of media, which is essentially to keep the global viewers well informed and up to date with factual news from across the globe, not to malign and attack differing ideologies and images.
Bibliography
Media Freedom Be Exercised with Professional Responsibility. (n.d.). Retrieved from Pakistan News Index: http://pakistannewsindex.com/%EF%BB%BFmedia-freedom-be-exercised-with-professional-responsibility/
Tsvangirai, M. (2015, November 12). Press Freedom and Media Responsibility. Retrieved from The Herald: http://www.herald.co.zw/press-freedom-and-media-responsibility/