People are often getting confused with the term Ethics. Ethics is not constant and there is no written rule for ethics. It is getting changed over a period of time and/or given up when changed circumstances or situations.

As true citizen Mr Venkat Manthripragada has expressed his outburst in his article "What is news and journalist's ethics?" Any patriot will behave like this as the fire of patriotism glitters in their eyes to see a shining country without dust. He is right from his point of view but we can't assume that every one will have the same vision. When I looked into this matter with a viewing glass of different shade I noticed some interesting phenomena and I like to share with our readers.

Ethics and its changes

When we jumping into commenting the ethics we shouldn't forget that the ethics is only in the field of journalism. Ethics is seen in all the fields and all the ways in life and are getting changed or disappeared. We could see some of them here below.

Family Ethics:

In most of the Indian families, the husband was earning for bread and the wife was staying at home maintained the family by raising and looking after children. This ethics of family was followed once is now changed. Today the husband and wife are earning for bread and maintenance of family by leaving their children at childcare. This is occurred due the changed life style.

Society Ethics:

In the society of India all the family members lived together as joint family. We had a good amount of happiness and bond of relationship as living with mum and dad, grandpa and grandma, aunt and uncle, cousins etc. Now we live separately with a small home of our own. The cruel part of the game is that the parents and grandparents supposed to be treated like God are allowed to live in old age home and climbing mountain with empty stomach to see the "photocopy" of the original God who is at old age home. Enjoy the fun of ethics in society.

Cultural Ethics:

We wore dhotis on the hip and covered the upper body with another piece of cloth. Had long hair and a knot at the end. Our forehead was decorated with holy mark and our ears were the basket for the freshly picked flowers. Now we moved to pant and shirt. Nicely trimmed hair. Our forehead is barren and our ears are pressed with cell phones. Where our cultural ethics is hiding?

Religious Ethics:

In some temples in South India and may be some in North India too the devotees are not allowed inside the temple with the upper garment. But when I visited Rishikesh I shocked to see the priests in temples. They covered their body fully with a cap on head and shocks on their feet. What happened to our religious ethics?

Dominance of creativity in journalism:

Creativity is inseparable from journalism irrespective of the type of journalism. In fact creativity enrich the news stories. But it should be handled efficiently like pepper and salt otherwise it would make the stuff unworthy. There is nothing wrong to use creativity in the news stories. All journals are comprising various segments like editorial, news report, public opinion or people speak, column, sports etc. Creativity is used in all the segments to enrich the presentation. News report may some times miss this and that too depends upon the reporter. If the reporter posses the creative skill he will present the news like "labour won the landslide victory by sweeping across the nation by pushing other parties and putting it's position top on the political ladder" instead "labour won in majority".

Just compare the two different forms of presentations. Is it changing the meaning, changing the opinion of the readers or changing the opinion of the masses to some other direction? Absolutely not! So presenting the news just as it is or with creative work is the sole discretion of the news presenter and no one can stop other's style of functioning unless otherwise it gives different meaning.

Lord Krishna himself used creativity when narrating "Geetha" to Arjuna in the battlefield. He should have told Arjuna, "nothing is certain". Why did he say, "The one which belonged to some one yesterday is belonging to you today and the one which is belonging you today will belong to someone else tomorrow"?

And also, I'm not telling that presenting news without creativity is wrong. Without creative handling the news item may be dry and raw and looks like texts. It doesn't mean people follow that style should form their own club and prepare texts for educational institutions.

Attractive Captions:

Attractive captions attract the reader's immediately and there is no doubt in that. In the competitive world implying attraction is not a sin. It shows the imaginary skill of the news presenter. See the difference below.

Ordinary caption: Four persons faced Prevention Act.

Attractive caption: Four fishes under Prevention Net.

The journal, which likes to function in a different style and attract readers will prefer the attractive caption in order to stay in business.

If a sweet meat manufacturer prepared a sweet with fine ingredients and pure ghee certainly the sweet would be taste enough. So with that confidence if he prints over the sweet box as "this sweet is manufactured from pure ghee". So what's wrong in it?

Public opinion:

All most all the journals in the world regardless of their circulation provide a segment as compliment to readers to write their views. This segment is known as Public opinion, People's corner, People speak, or Reader's opinion. The name itself implies the readers are allowed to present their views frankly and freely. They can pick up any "news story" and analyse that topic and give their opinion as they feel. If some one tries to impose some guidelines to follow when presenting the opinion then how it could be a public or readers opinion. It seems ridiculous isn't?

I don't understand how far the discussion in the public opinion will reach the illiterates to induce the writer's view and drive them in such a way to tilt the opinion, which related on any topic. And how it would be possible to force the literates to accept our opinion by writing "bullshit". And if any one tries to do that, won't it be ridiculous. So according to me it's an unwanted imagination perpetrated to stop the exposures due to some motivated reasons.

Newsworthy presentation?

The incidents are occurring naturally and if there incidents of great value, they are picked up as hot news and flashed immediately in the competitive world of journalism. When incidents occurring naturally it do not happen by seeing the news worthy. If a dog gave birth to a puppy with human face, it will be flashed in the first page by pushing the news of Government's fund allotment for a separate bathing tank for ladies in a famous temple to third page. The puppy with the resemblance of human face doesn't serve anything remarkably for the larger section of the community. Even then it becomes an important or news worthy news.

Separate bathing tank for female devotees in a famous temple reflects on the larger section of the community but unfortunately it doesn't pick up the significance in that particular situation. So no one can decide the news worthy except the situation.

Presentation of sensitive news:

Editor or the team of editors are brilliant people to handle the sensitive news. Their vast skill in the field of journalism and the gained experience through the past incidents would certainly dictate them how to deal with sensitive news. If a news surfaces about the high-ranking profile in religious hierarchy viewing blue films, then it should be exposed to the public as a true journalist. This kind of exposures are essential to serve as an eye opener to the public in order to protect them from the tiger which is hiding under cow skin. In contrast, if a journalist fails to expose the news then the journal, which he belongs can't be considered as a neutral journal and only the propaganda tool of the vested interests.

Prime time and disturbing exposures:

There is no prime time for global media like television. We may put a hitch in India by this reason but the invasion of channels from abroad through pay TV won't allow to justify the prime time concept. We will have to wait for some more time to get a technological advancement by which an incorporated monitoring feature will shut the screen whenever a disturbing scene striking in the TV.

On this juncture let me ask few questions. Won't it affect the concerned in the way the funeral procession carried with the exposed dead body? Do we think of skinned off animals cut into pieces and hanged on hook with tripping blood in the meat shop? Did we consider at anytime when exposed in cinema or TV that Lord Narasimha's action of splitting the demon's body and eating the flesh and blood will disturb the minds of the concerned? Which one that stopped to raise our voice when interestingly seeing the disturbing scene of stripping off the Pandava's wife and made her half naked? So the disturbing scenes are there everywhere and honestly we have to accept it. If we find a piece of glass or a thorn on the road, our duty is pick them up and throw them away and continue our journey. Nobody is purposely placing glass pieces or thorn on the road and for that reason we can't avoid the road or accuse anyone for that cause.

Conclusion:

• Any journal, news portal, e-paper, or television media should follow the global guide lines and shouldn't follow the guide lines set by any individual.

• While considering the term newsworthy brush aside religious sentiments, hero sentiments and national sentiments and give importance to only the subject and its weight. Otherwise when the same news flashed in other news media will certainly bring unpopular status to the media, which failed to expose the news story.

• The journalism shouldn't develop the bad illusion that the creativity in news presentation is wrong. In fact it encourages the readers to stay on the news and further move on. This is the success in business of journalism.

• Public opinion segment should be considered for the purpose for which it is created. The readers are allowed to express their opinion to fit exactly in to the segment. The writers can also participate in this segment but they should strip off their identity and play as one the public. If any writer comes here and dictates terms would certainly be like reading bible in Mosque, reading Koran in temple, or reading Siva Purana or Vishnu Purana in the Church.

The above said points are not guidelines or terms and which I'm not dictating but making as a humble request for any possible consideration if the concerned feels that I'm right. I like to write lots and lots but the time is the killing factor. So I would like to finish my article at this stage.

S Sankara Subramanian
Melbourne,
Australia

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