Stakeholders must introspect on standards of journalism in India: CJI

Chief Justice of India N V Ramana on Tuesday rued absence of international level awards and such award winning journalists in India, calling upon all the stakeholders to introspect as to why the standards are not considered good enough for international recognition and laurels.

"Unfortunately, we still do not have an award which is comparable to the Pulitzer, and neither do we produce many Pulitzer winning journalists in India," he said.

Speaking at the launch of the book titled as 'The Gita Vijnana Upanishad' by Gulab Chand Kothari of 'Rajasthan Patrika', he pointed out at a huge lacuna when it comes to systemic support for journalists in India.

Maintaining that independent journalism is the backbone of democracy and journalists are the eyes and the ears of the people, he said it is the responsibility of media houses to present facts. 

"All I want to say is that the media must confine itself to honest journalism without using it as a tool to expand its influence and business interests. You may recall that only media houses without business baggage, were able to fight for democracy during the dark days of emergency. The true nature of media houses will certainly be assessed from time to time, and appropriate conclusions will be drawn from their conduct during testing times," he said.

Recalling his brief stint as a journalist, he said there used to be healthy competition to do great public interest stories.

"I am sure there are journalists who are equally enthused in today’s media too. But after taking risks and putting in a lot of hard work and energy, a brilliant story filed by a journalist is killed at the desk. It is thoroughly demoralising for a genuine journalist. You cannot blame him or her, if they encounter such situations repeatedly and lose faith in the profession," he said.

On July 23, the CJI had lashed out at the media for running 'kangaroo' courts with "ill-informed and agenda driven debates" on issues involving justice delivery and proving to be detrimental to the health of democracy. 

In a speech in Ranchi, he also flagged "concerted campaigns in media, particularly on social media against judges" and rising number of media trials, affecting the fair functioning and independence of judiciary.