India’s news media consuming public hopped up on the propagandist drivel dished out day in and day out by the brazenly pro-establishment vacuous superstar TV anchors is suddenly discovering what credible and independent journalism looks like. It has come in the form of a damning exposé of the rot in the country’s Election Commission of India (ECI) by the print journalist Ritika Chopra, who is a senior correspondent of The Indian Express.

At its core, Ritika’s story is about how the country’s Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar kept his two fellow commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi in the dark about the way in which Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which is otherwise a routine clean-up process, was misused to essentially disenfranchise 130 million Indians across India. This is as big a scandal as it gets in the world’s largest democracy because it erodes the very foundation of its electoral democracy.

The EC, which is an autonomous body not answerable to the government in its supervision of elections and operational details such as revising electoral rolls as an ongoing exercise, stands stunningly exposed by the Express investigation, which has not been denied but sought to be obfuscated with unconvincing explanations. 

While the issues raised by the story will be discussed and debated threadbare for a long time, an aside that is important for the people to recognize is how profoundly essential serious, fearless and diligent journalism is in this era where the broadcast media in India have covered themselves in the ignominy of becoming servile to the government.

As pointed out by Ritika, “We spent months investigating the inner workings of the EC. What we found: the majority of the Commission, kept in the dark for almost a year.” 

Partisan News Anchors

Serious journalism demands meticulous tapping of sources, analyzing often densely worded documents, navigating roadblocks thrown up by vested political and bureaucratic interests and a news organization with both unimpeachable professional integrity and resources.

This is such an antithesis to what the shamelessly partisan news anchors on most television channels do in India and get paid millions in the process. The anchors gather up a bunch of political hacks as furious talking heads and ignite them with talking points handed to them by political or government functionaries. Their sole benchmark is the ratings they can generate almost invariably at the cost of the truth.

Their daily and nightly appearances in the brightly lit up TV studios create a certain glamor around them which gets mistaken for credibility and seriousness of purpose. 

This is in sharp contrast to what a newspaper journalist’s life is. It is generally devoid of any such glamor. It demands a great deal of legwork and grunt work chasing sources that can stretch for weeks and months before a news story of consequence takes shape.

Redeeming Print Journalism

There are clear signs that the news consuming public has significantly soured on what they have been served by television channels in the poor guise of news. In a sense, Ritika’s investigation rejuvenates good old print journalism. 

Of course, there is no guarantee that other newspapers would follow suit and feel strengthened to do their own independent investigations but to the extent that the Express story reminds the people of India what real journalism can do, as this could prove to be a seminal moment.

It is true that only a handful of newspapers have the resources and persistence to pursue big stories of the kind that came alive in the EC exposé. Nevertheless, to the extent that it inspires others to pursue even smaller news stories with steadfastness this could potentially redeem the otherwise sordid state of affairs in the Indian media.

(The writer is a veteran journalist, author and commentator based in Chicago. The views expressed are entirely personal. He can be reached at mcsix@outlook.com)