Bureaucracy is the practice of taking a bunch of well-meaning people and tying them up in so much red tape, rules and process that they are unable to function, and at the end even the simplest tasks takes enormous process, time and effort.
Bureaucracy and the accompanying red tape does not work firstly, because it is more obsessed about the process than the results, and secondly, it aims to apply one rule or process to differing situations.
It must be said that the Bhutanese media excels in tying itself up in media red tape.
In the last two weeks, some voices have advocated against ‘naming and shaming’ until a court verdict is out in the context of publication of pictures in the Pamtsho case.
As discussed before the pictures added to the Pamtsho case and may even help in the Paro and Dangrina cases, but the attempted media red tape is more obsessed about the process than the results.
It also applies the same process to a very different case.
Some media professionals in following this red tape may have not realised it yet, but we don’t have to create new red tape, as there are already red tape monsters lurking in the bureaucratic deep that can impact media houses at any moment.
There are certain government rules where names of any person are allowed to be released by media houses only on fulfilling two conditions. The first is that there has to be a court conviction and that is not enough as there also has to be a public interest in sharing the identity of the person after conviction.
This is not just for pictures, but even the names of people in normal stories.
This rule is in violation of the Constitutional rights of free press and speech but rules like this stand.
With rules like this every media house in the country has committed numerous violations over the years whenever it has released the names of people accused in ACC reports, RAA reports, Police reports and even its own reporting where it may have named people. There is no media house that has not done so.
Using rules like this and all the self-flagellation by the media, the people named in media stories in the past or future even as part of investigative stories or ACC, RAA or other reports can potentially sue media houses.
Similarly, there are several legal provisions in several acts and rules that can easily be flicked like a switch against media houses and professionals.
In the not too distant past, just after democracy, a law enforcement agency had threatened severe legal action and even possible jail time against a former Editor and a senior journalist of a major newspaper, using several such legal provisions, over a critical but innocuous and factual story.
In this context, we have come a long way and it must be said that we enjoy much more expanded media freedoms today not only due to the Constitution or Democracy, but due to the fact that media houses and professionals have all diligently pushed the boundaries of press freedom in their own ways.
The various agencies and institutions has also accepted this new reality and understood the role of media, though, it has not always been smooth riding or smooth acceptance.
For example, a lot of the reporting of today would be unthinkable a couple of decades ago where RAA reports was the pinnacle of critical journalism and that too done carefully with the fear of offending senior government officials.
The media’s incremental freedoms are hard won, but it will not take much for it go away or diminish if we ourselves muddy the waters.
Every media house and for that matter every journalist has their own editorial stance, policies and sensibilities.
It is best to not try and impose editorial stands on each other and let the public decide as long as it is in the public interest and within the Constitution.
Media houses and journalists getting into arguments to impose their homogenous editorial stance on all other media houses or journalists is not healthy.
This internal squabble will also allow those waiting in the side lines to swoop in and shrink the collective space.
Media houses and journalists do not have to agree with one other and a healthy debate on issues is always welcome. However, we are all headed for trouble when we start questioning the basic principles and duties of a free press in attempts to impose our idea of what is the media and journalism on everyone else.
The job of the free press is to check and balance all three arms of the state and one of them is the judiciary.
The latest argument that writing about public interest cases while before or in litigation is attempting to influence the judiciary and put pressure on poor Drangpons is a perfect example of how editorial arguments should not end up undermining the very pillars on which free press stands.
The judiciary has enormous powers, resilience and institutional strength and it should be subject to scrutiny by the press. The judiciary is not infallible as seen in the recent removal of the two justices of the high court and the Attorney General.
We all know that journalism is tough and the environment is only getting tougher with issues of access to information and high attrition rate. There is no point trying to trip each other up due to misplaced competition, one up-manship or an attempt to apply one’s own standards on others.
We are all in the same boat and we will sail or sink together.
“You can’t pick and choose which types of freedom you want to defend. You must defend all of it or be against all of it.”
Scott Howard Phillips