American whistleblower Edward Snowden was chosen as the Person OfThe Year 2013 by London newspaper The Guardian and also made it to the shortlist of TIME magazine’s title. This is a clear indication of how the nature of journalism is rapidly changing in today’s Internet-influenced world. There was a time when they said that the pen was mightier that the sword; but now we can comfortably say that the Internet is more powerful than the pen.
Although Snowden looked for a newspaper to publish top-secret documents about US surveillance methods on people in the country and abroad, American soldier Bradley Manning leaked hundreds of documents about the realities of the Afghan war on the Internet. So the change that the Internet has brought in is simple and yet decisive.
Earlier journalists had to gather crucial information on a controversial story but then also obtain appropriate documents to back it up. Now, any ordinary citizen with a conscience does not need a reporter or a newspaper or a TV channel to break a story. He or she already has an effective vehicle in the form of the Internet to reach out and communicate the information they have to millions of Internet users. In the beginning, experts did talk about how the Internet can strengthen democracy and let us meet people freely and explore new things. But no one had predicted that it will wipe out the need of costly news vehicles like TV, radio and newspapers to carry the newsy information to the people.
All Snowden did was tell the American people that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had been illegally wiretapping their phones and scooping their emails and social media, all under the pretext of finding “the needle of terrorism in the haystack of cyberspace.” He hinted that under the American Patriot Act the “haystack” is expanding even beyond American borders. The American Press had already smelt the rat when former president George W Bush signed the Patriot Act after the 9/11 Al-Qaeda terror attacks on the US. But if left to the press, it would have been difficult and in some cases impossible for reporters to get the documents to back up the fact that the privacy of the American people was in jeopardy. But Snowden, the insider, used the Internet to bypass the lengthy procedure for reporters to obtain such documents and then convince their editors to publish them in the newspapers or on TV. So in a way, the Internet has really made investigative journalism relatively easier, but the problem is that it can have dire consequences for the whistleblowers like Snowden. And social media seems to one step ahead. It may not necessarily involve a whistleblower and can still help the mainstream media to take a story forward.
It can nudge mainstream reporters to investigate further, as it happened in the ongoing saga of Tarun Tejpal’s sexual harassment. Although a few media experts feel that the media, especially the electronic media, has not been fair to Tejpal and has gone too far in demeaning him because of the allegations by a victim who herself had posted content with sexual undertones on her website, I believe it was the pressure of social media that forced mainstream media to cover the story in greater depth, although sometimes it seemed unfair to Tejpal.
A crucial difference between mainstream and social media, is that the latter is free of political and government pressures and is capable of setting its own agenda on its own terms. Those active on social media, most often than not, don’t mince words and call spade a spade because there are no editors to make your copy a “better read” or kill your story at the behest of the TV channel or newspaper owners.
It could be crude and sometimes abusive and it may not follow proper rules of journalism, which can sometimes be dangerous, but it can surely push the envelope for regular media, and force it to look into something it missed or deliberately ignored. It can also push reporters to widen their investigation. So my contention is that a large part of mainstream media’s remaining power depends on what is discussed on the social and digital media. Of course, it can sometimes decide to ignore the real issues and biases, but only at the cost of its own credibility.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that social media is only a positive force. Politicians like Modi and others can easily abuse digital media for fanning false claims, or some troublemakers can abuse it to fan communal riots or social troubles; but those, I would say, are collateral consequences.
The fact is that the digital power of the common man today can keep the government in check and mainstream media on its toes. That was and is the most crucial role of the press in a democracy, but now, it seems, the Internet has really changed the basic nature of journalism and given more power to the aam aadmi, triggering a metamorphosis that could make the profession of journalism, nobler.
(Author/news analyst Ravi M Khanna is currently freelancing after a 24-year stint with Voice Of America in Washington DC, as South Asia bureau chief)
Feedback: ravimohankhanna@gmail.com
