Freedom of Information - Challenges to Journalism in India


Freedom of Information (FOI) is under threat allover again. Journalists in India ought to be concerned about that. We have the being-unleashed POTA. Instead of allowing a select to know all/have all, the citizens of this country deserve, indeed, desire more openness. Ask the people on the streets and they believe that governments should operate in the open. They’d prefer easy access to government records.

A ruse constantly doled out is that the rules of the game have changed in the digital age. It was amazing to hear how “Interception” was openly being extolled as the virtue of POTA by the promoters of POTO-is-panacea.

The common citizen can be recruited to the fight against terrorism quite easily. In the name of this national duty, a contrived consensus is built to let go of some very fundamental rights. In India, like in most countries, the debate on FOI inevitably is confined to a tiny elite. The debate on POTO exemplified that. The people could not be politically organized to oppose POTO. While that remains a fact of life, one would expect this tiny elite to have an informed debate and ensure that the issue gets enough media attention.

The digital age is bringing new challenges to FOI. The digital age holds the promise of easier access to information. But, the promise is being endangered by the inadequacies of the systems and ‘analogue’ mindset involved.

In India, there is no explicit constitutional provision for Freedom of the Press. The press has to take umbrage under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. Even so, with increasing digitization, access to government records by accredited journalists would seem like a mantra that should be on the lip of every journalist worth her/his salt. No. I don’t see that happening.

The skepticism with which the citizens of the country hold the press and the response to which has been the increased ‘life-stylisation’ of journalism is hardly a healthy sign for a young democracy like ours.

The challenge for newspapers should actually be to remind citizens that journalism’s traditional watchdog function is alive and well. One remedy is to make the case that greater access to government information benefits the public and not just the press. A concerted campaign in the media is called for. The public needs to be reminded that FOI will ensure that public bodies can be made accountable on a regular basis, especially when elected representatives themselves are oftentimes hard-pressed to get information.

In a country, which has a computer penetration rate as low as 0.3 per 1000 the Internet seems like a luxury. While that remains a constant in the equation, at least for a considerable period of time, the presence of computers with Internet connections are becoming increasingly common in newsrooms in most cities.

Instead of recognizing the benefits of digitization in the practice of journalism, in terms of access to information, our newspapers and television channels prefer to warn of the “dangers” of the Internet, or focus on the boom and bust of the dot-coms, eulogize personalities like Chandrababu Naidu for their market-friendly facade, does not add much to the debate on the tangible benefits and the potential pitfall of the ongoing digital revolution.

Issues of concern
In a survey conducted last year by the American Society of Newspaper Editors(ASNE) and the First Amendment Center called Freedom of Information in the Digital Age, found that people were in favour of allowing access to information on government but were opposed to making more personal information public. People felt that: “access to criminal convictions, police logs, public officials’ salaries,“ but were opposed giving access to, “personal records — such as divorce records, driver’s licenses and voter registrations.”

The survey also found that the people: ”do not trust government and industry to use the information as promised, although they trust government a little more than they do private companies.”

These concerns are legitimate. The report also caution: “advocates of freedom of information need to come up with a clearheaded and comprehensive statement about where we stand on privacy: which elements of the privacy movement are reasonable responses to legitimate concerns, and which are overreactions to new technology.” We too should address these concerns right away.

Journalistic concerns
Computer-assisted journalism (CAJ) is established form of journalism especially in the US and Canada. Freedom of Information is closely linked to this form of journalisms. If journalists in India are exposed to the benefits of CAJ, the need of FOI will acquire an immediacy in India as well.

Nevertheless, according to the report, in the US: “some newspapers make only limited use of technology in their own public-records efforts, others are well into this. Many routinely make public-records databases available to readers. Almost all are using the Internet to access records for reporting purposes, and many are linking to government databases, both with specific stories and with standing features.”

We have a long way to go in computer-assisted journalism. We can innovate though, here’s a post by Jeff South, Associate Professor, School of Mass Communications, Virginia Commonwealth University, in the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR) mailing list posted on March 13, 2001:

My Legislative Reporting students today posted their class project: a computer-assisted investigation into gifts that Virginia legislators and other state officials received from businesses, special-interest groups and lobbyists.

The students created a database of all gifts that lawmakers reported on the conflict-of-interest forms they filed in January. We have put the records online, with a searchable interface.

The project, with dozens of stories and tables, represents the final issue of this semester's Web-zine, On The Lege. The URL is:

http://www.people.vcu.edu/~jcsouth/on-the-lege/ .


More and more journalists in India should start participating in mailing lists and newsgroups including egroups. I’m sure we can use the resources already available in our newsrooms to reinvigorate and newsrooms. Newsroom managers in India must identify Net-savvy journalists in their newsrooms and encourage them to indulge in CAJ.

There are umpteen number of sites catering to CAJ and a few good sources in the Indian context:

·Nora Paul is a great exponent of CAJ.


·Poynter does not need any introduction, I guess.


·National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting


·Investigative Reporters and Editors


·Privacy Issues (FACTNet)


·Statistics Every Writer Should Know (Niles)


FactMonster: On-Line Dictionary, Encyclopedia, and Homework Help


·Census of India, Govt. of India - Ministry of Home Affairs, web-site


·Election Commission of India


Directory of official web sites of Government of India


INTCAR-L, is a mailing list for CAR in an International context