More than 10,000 newspapers and thousands of magazines in the nation; not many felt proud of the Indian journalist's achievement. While a few, unwillingly, did devote a little space somewhere in the paper to mention Sainath's name and feat. The remaining were busy reporting on how the poor daughter of Sanjay Dutt would live in the US following his imprisonment, ignoring millions of innocent daughters and sons starve and succumb to the floods in the remote rurals of Bihar
Gandhiji remarked, "The sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countryside and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy." Harijan, his favourite newspaper was closed down with an explanation, "The superficiality, onesidedness, inaccuracy, and even dishonesty that have crept into modern journalism, continuously mislead honest men who want to see nothing but justice done." [Mass Comm. In India by J.V. Vilanilam]
Vinod Mehta, the Editor-in-Chief of Outlook, in an article acclaiming the contribution of Sham Lal wrote,"They don't make editors like Sham Lal anymore. He was a part of a cultural, intellectual and social tradition which died as market forces massacred journalism." Mehta added, "If anyone had told him that newspapers must also entertain, he would have shot the person." [Outlook, 12 March '07]
A country deafened by the despair of 220 million poor countrymen; difficulties of millions rural habitants suffering and killed in the fury of natural calamites, screams of a thousand farmers committing suicides every year, millions of children in the grip of exploitation, thousands of female foeticide every year, five million HIV infectants and problems arising due to 'out of control' booming population, wants to 'read and write' about what a celeb is wearing and who he/she has a date with. "More than 260 million Indians live in deprivation. One in every 4 poor peson in the world is Indian", writes Praful. C. Patel. [India Today, 18 Dec '07]
Rajdeep Sardesai, the Editor-in- Chief of CNN-IBN says, "Are we looking down upon our viewers because we are giving them something they want to see? Journalism is not about what viewers want but about what they ought to know." [Tehelka,18 Aug '07]
Nevertheless, amidst a market of journalists and 'news-viewers' there also exist a group of rational readers and journalists who deliver to each other what they feel and must know about their society and nation. It is their mutual understanding of 'true and responsible journalism' that newspapers and news-readers still hold the label of 'awakening and intellectual value'. And P. Sainath is one of them.
