Opinions split over Shehla Rashid’s outburst at Republic TV journalist
It was at a protest gathering for slain journalist Gauri Lankesh that Shehla Rashid, a student leader from JNU and now a familiar voice in Indian mainstream and social media sphere, burst out at a Republic TV reporter, saying that the channel was indirectly responsible for adding to the climate of ideological hate that snuffed out the life of veteran journalist Gauri Lankesh. Rashid, as a result, has received a veritable deluge of conflicting responses that range from overt condemnation to effusive praise of the student politician.
@Shehla_Rashid shows @republic their place, throws them out, Wow! These #Sanghi stooges should be thrown out of every meeting/gathering. pic.twitter.com/xz5S1UQGsz
— NostradamusSezشاہد (@nostradamuspeak) September 6, 2017
Here, in this video, Rashid can be seen giving a dressing down (though many have said she was absolutely in the wrong) to the TV journalist from the channel that most among the self-proclaimed liberals claim peddles fake news (it has been busted a number of times). But that said, should Rashid have singled out the reporter and “bullied” him at a solidarity meet for another journalist?
While some of the allegations that Rashid made at Republic TV, while hurling her tirade at the lone reporter did have some substance, many are expressing major umbrage at the manner and the occasion of her vitriolic monologue/bravura performance. Here’s a collation of select opinions on the incident, and it’s evident that Rashid has managed to divide the Indian mediasphere along sharp fault lines.
Shekhar Gupta
Humiliating reporters a shame, that too on pretext of protecting liberal ideas. PCI musn't let activists throw out reporters doing their job https://t.co/rLet4pfQjH
— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) September 7, 2017
Humiliating reporters a shame, that too on pretext of protecting liberal ideas. PCI musn't let activists throw out reporters doing their job. It's shameful for ANY activist to throw out ANY journalist doing his/her job on ANY street.
Hartosh Singh Bal, political editor, The Caravan
People are free to say what they want about Republic TV, but they are not free to stop them from covering a public protest.
people are free to say what they want about @republic, but they are not free to stop them from covering a public protest https://t.co/XCGidwHr5c
— Hartosh Singh Bal (@HartoshSinghBal) September 8, 2017
G Sampath, journalist at The Hindu
I see a lot of people, including journalists I admire, saying that Shehla Rashid was wrong to throw Republic TV out. Such a judgement comes from confused thinking - it is the same confusion that leads many liberals to defend the fascists' "right to free speech".
Let's get this clear: People who day-in and day-out endorse, and enact, the suppression of dissent in their TV studios automatically surrender their journalistic credentials. They cannot expect to be treated like normal journalists when they venture out of their studios.
In this particular instance, I would go so far as to say that Shehla was ethically obliged, given this channel's calculated smear attack on Gauri Lankesh, to throw them out. It is obvious that her angry words were not a personal attack on the reporter, and one need not get into the personal reasons why a reporter may have joined this channel. I would actually have been disappointed if she had let them stay.
And secondly, she sought to publicly shame Republic TV - and shaming an organisation is NOT the same as humiliating an individual reporter.
If tomorrow ISIS starts a TV channel, reporters who join the channel, let's say for purely legitimate reasons (to earn their bread) must not expect to be treated as normal journalists. Spreading hate and channeling incitement to violence is not compatible with journalistic values. It carries a price - that was the price Shehla sought to extract from Republic TV yesterday. You cannot work for a hate-monger and claim journalistic privileges, any more than you can espouse fascism and claim freedom of expression.
Shuddhabrata Sengupta, author and artist
I am sorry but I don't buy this line about how one should be courteous and polite to reporters and correspondents of Republic TV, Times Now and Zee News. These organisations have a well-cultivated public profile and the people who seek work with them know exactly what they are doing and what they are expected to do. I categorically do not think that they should be equated with other journalists doing their job. That is an insult to every actual journalist in print, on TV, or on the web.
The job that the people who work for Republic TV and Times Now and their clones are doing is not journalism. It is PR for the mafia that is in power. I wish more people had the presence of mind that Shehla Rashid did when she humiliated the Republic TV reporter. I think a person who chooses to work for Republic TV should experience the odd episode of public shaming.
Pratik Sinha, co-founder Alt News
Humiliating a reporter irrespective of which news channel he/she works for is wrong. A reporter does not decide channel policies. Shehla Rashid should not have humiliated the Republic TV reporter who was only there to do his job.
Anjali Mody, journalist
Most young reporters take jobs that they find. The young reporter who is being applauded for quitting Republic TV, previously worked for Times Now. From our secure middle-aged perches it’s easy to pass judgement. Very few (not me among them) have been lucky to work for media houses whose editorial policies we agree with. I think instead of excoriating a young person whose circumstances we know nothing about, let’s talk about all those "experts" who populated Times Now's incendiary nightly broadcast for years, giving it the legitimacy it did not deserve. Some of those "experts" are now on Republic TV.
Kavita Krishnan, civil rights activist, CPIML member
I myself have had a Republic TV reporter try to refer to me as a "Maoist" party leader while a Times Now reporter has shouted at me calling me an anti-national. So these rogue channels have several rogue reporters too. Another point - the killing of Gauri isn't just an attack on journalism, academics and activists are equally being killed by the same lot. So activists speaking at a protest meet called by journalists really shouldn't be a problem. Personally, I am civil to the reporters of these channels but civilly refuse to give bites and also civilly refuse to let them take footage of our protests because they misuse that footage on their channels, distorting it to fit their poisonous narrative. That simply isn't journalism and sorry, the great liberal journalists need to start saying so, clearly. My position on speaking to these channels is to tell their employees I'm sorry for them but can't speak to their channels.
Nilanjana S Roy, senior journalist
Not at all sure that equivalence holds. The Press Club allowed Republic TV to attend the meeting. The reporter, who'd previously taunted Shehla, was told he could not record her and that she wanted him to leave. Given the taunts, the channel's abysmal record on covering this particular murder and her anger and grief at that moment, I would certainly not want to censor her responses or call them inappropriate. They were appropriate to the specific situation, especially since she did not want them to air footage of her speech and had the right to set that boundary.
I think people have a right to tell a channel that you don't want them to use - and possibly misuse - your footage. They've done real harm in the past, we're not talking abstractions here. Shehla's right to say that she doesn't want to be on the channel in any way, given how they've used footage in the past.
Press Club "allowed" - in response to any thought that their access was blocked. The institution did not block access, and individuals should be free to speak their minds. That channel has no hesitation in showering individuals with abuse, after all.
Just to add - beyond the discussion, people were there to grieve, mourn and protest Gauri's murder. If I'm outraged about anything, it's not at Shehla's response. It's that Republic TV's coverage of her murder, and of so many other atrocities is ugly, unethical and disgusting.
Rituparna Chatterjee, deputy editor, Huffington Post India
As a former reporter, have to say: Your politics might not align with a channel's, but reporters sent on assignment are just doing their job
— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) September 7, 2017
As a former reporter, have to say: Your politics might not align with a channel's, but reporters sent on assignment are just doing their job. And in many cases (Sumana Nandy for example) their views differ from their boss's. Imagine the guts it takes to still show up. There are many platforms to establish political dissent.
But go easy on people doing their jobs okay? Humiliating them doesn't help your cause.
Shehla can choose not to answer a question. Republic TV is within its rights to ask it. It's not a invite-only private room. It's a public spot. But keeping media of certain ideology out, I feel she's playing into the hands of those who endorse such censorship. Imagine for a minute had this been a BJP press conference and the speaker threw out reporters of a certain media house? Exactly. By the same argument, can we assume individual politics always aligns with management's? Most journalists don't.
It makes me uncomfortable to see a reporter being put on the spot like that. Though entirely fair that she made her stand clear. I haven't looked at tweets to Shehla, but as I said, entirely within her right not to answer Republic TV's questions/call out their journalism. And not always they're flag-bearers of management's editorial policy. But yes, I'll concede in this case they're representatives of channel.
Mitali Saran, columnist, Business Standard
There has been much heated argument on the question of "balance" in these polarised times. Should firebrand activist Shehla Rashid have asked the Republic TV reporter to "get out"? Are protests over Gauri Lankesh’s death meaningless unless protesters have also spoken for slain RSS workers? Should the debate be focused on the Karnataka government’s pursuit of justice, and not on the long-standing and far-reaching effects of social engineering? Is shutting down hate-mongering social media handles compatible with free speech?
I submit that this is now a smokescreen of hair-splitting, and that we are long past splitting hairs. We will, in time, see justice for Gauri Lankesh — or we won’t, as we didn’t in the similar execution-style murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, and MM Kalburgi. There will be more fear, more executions. There will be endless sickening finessing and justification and deflection to so-called liberal hypocrisy. There will be more discrediting of media and more lies popularised on Whatsapp.
I submit that we are not "in danger of becoming" a Hindu Rashtra, the dearest dream of the RSS-BJP combine. We are there. Today, right now, we are a baby Hindu Rashtra taking its first messy, unsteady steps. This is what it looks like. Nurtured by hard-core supporters, but also by fence-sitters, the naive, and the wilfully blind, it will very soon lose its baby dimples to become much bigger, much stronger, and much, much uglier.
Neena Haridas, editor-in-chief, L'officiel India
The most important debate at the moment is whether it was right for Shehla to demand that a certain journalist from a certain media house be thrown out from her press meet. The journalist in question was Snehesh Philip from Republic TV. Philip had a few days ago questioned the murder investigation and to quote him, called it "pathetic".
Shehla went on to accuse Republic TV of trying to cover up the murder of Gauri Lankesh while spewing vitriol on several other journalists and naming a few for turning several other murders into BJP/RSS cover-ups. In her words, Republic TV has deliberately been covering up such reports with a political agenda because "they are BJP and RSS stooges".
The young girl made a calculated move while choosing the channel that she wanted "thrown out" even as she spoke right into their camera. After all, thanks to Arnab Goswami's style of journalism that appeals to emotions, hysterical reaction would have been a natural outcome. But Arnab Goswami and his crew kept their cool moving on to other important matters at hand. Shehla's controversy will live the 15-minute shelf life contained within 140 characters.
If you look at it closely, it is neither a debate on free speech nor is it about political murders. If it were, all this drama would make sense. Shehla Rashid is symptomatic of how our political system has devolved over the years.
Namita Bhandare, senior journalist and author
Gauri Lankesh posed proudly with a new generation of leftist leaders including Kanhaiya Kumar and Shehla Rashid, calling them her ideological "children". You may not like this brand of ideology. You may raise questions about values of objectivity in the face of such open association. But, so far, holding these ideas has not been banned in this country. Gauri was perfectly open about her beliefs. Readers were just as perfectly free to withdraw subscriptions from her ad-free publication, Gauri Lankesh Patrike. (As an aside, I strongly disapprove of Shehla Rashid's throwing out a reporter from Republic TV from a protest meeting. By doing so, she has used the technique and tactics of her detractors: according respect only to those who agree with you. You cannot bat for a free press selectively.)
Sidharth Bhatia, co-founder, The Wire
Preventing a reporter from covering a public event is self-limiting. You can refuse to talk to them, ignore them but let them do their job.
Preventing a reporter from covering a public event is self limiting. You can refuse to talk to them, ignore them but let them do their job
— Sidharth Bhatia (@bombaywallah) September 8, 2017