June 29, 2008

In what appears now as a lucid account of an imbalanced press, Walter Lippmann gave an advisory 87 years ago on the ramifications of a partisan press; clearly every word of it depicts the media and its present state in Pakistan today.

‘The work of reporters has thus become confused with the work of preachers, revivalists, prophets and agitators.’ Lippmann could not have been more explicit. For some reporters truth comes second; it is the perceived national interest that comes first, he said. Lippmann’s views on the craft of journalism were derived from his experience with the curdling of American progressivism and the end of its innocence after World War I. The ‘present crisis of western democracy is a crisis in journalism’, wrote Lippmann in Liberty and the News in 1920, which has recently been republished in a slim and attractive volume. Lippmann argues that the press threatens democracy whenever it has an agenda other than the free flow of ideas, and that there is a necessary connection between liberty and truth.

The author excoriates the press, claiming that it exists primarily for its own purposes and agendas and only incidentally to promote the honest interplay of fact and ideas. With great power comes great responsibility, is what Lippmann would have meant when he glorified the press, calling it the ‘bible of democracy… a power unlike any that has been exercised since the Pope lost his hold on the secular mind.’ On the other hand, ‘the father of modern objectivity’ according to Sidney Blumen-thal, advises that ‘there can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil.’

Lippmann’s disenchantment with the press takes its roots from his honest attempt which turned into a bitter experience when he co-founded the political weekly the New Republic and worked there until being appointed the US representative on the Inter-Allied Propaganda Board, with the rank of captain. However, he submitted a report on how the committee manipulated news to foster national hysteria and quit the job.

His scathing criticism of the press does not end with this book Public Opinion published in 1922; Lippmann again took the press to task for presenting self-perceived pictures without much self-discipline, sophistication or intellectual weight. He says that the actions of people are at the mercy of the flawed and hazy picture of the world that various media provide. Are we not witnessing a similar situation in our society today when media is run on rumours and inside stories (which later need retractions) than news items based on facts and objective analysis?

Lippmann wrote, ‘The most destructive form of untruth is sophistry and propaganda by those whose profession it is to report the news. The news columns are common carriers. When those who control them arrogate to themselves the right to determine what shall be reported and for what purpose, public opinion is blockaded.’ Doesn’t that create a paradox? Media today has presumably become the biggest proponent of democracy, the true voice of a nation, but are we not fed with half-baked truths most of the time?

‘Incompetence and aimlessness, corruption and disloyalty, panic and ultimate disaster must come to any people denied an assured access to facts.’ So, do we have an outright culprit in front of us? I guess the answer would be a yes and a no.

According to Lippmann, the reporter is a man of critical value. No amount of money or effort spent in fitting the right men for this work could possibly be wasted, for the health of society depends on the quality of information it receives. And in the same breath he laments and poses the question: ‘Do our schools of journalism, the few we have, make this kind of training their object?’

The book incisively presents a picture of American government and its functionaries at the time. ‘Decisions in the modern state tend to be made by the interaction, not of Congress and the executive, but of public opinion and the executive.’ Lippmann chides the Congress which he said had no way of keeping itself informed. Lippmann provides a cursory look at the state of affairs in America of the ‘20s but to this scribe it feels like a read through his own alleys, his own newspapers; observing his political masters mock themselves with propaganda and alleged expose.

It also raises a pertinent question: are we willing to learn from history? The book includes his three essays namely Journalism and the Higher Law, What Modern Liberty Means and Liberty and the News. This book is still relevant despite the revolutionary changes that have occurred since the publication of this book in 1920.

The rationale for republishing Liberty and the News, if viewed in our own context, is to re-energise journalism education in the light of Lipp-mann’s views. By focusing on Lippmann’s work, our budding and seasoned journalists, one may hope, would earnestly try to ward off the impact of poor journalism, and strengthen democracy in Pakistan.