Prem Prakash is a veteran Indian journalist, who has reported on major events in the Indian subcontinent for over seven decades. Prakash has covered some of the most important stories of post-Independence India, including the 1962 Indo-China war. He is currently the chairman of ANI. Today, ANI is South Asia's leading multimedia news agency with over 100 bureaus in India , South Asia and across the globe. Ahead of the launch of his book ‘Reporting India My Seventy-year Journey as a Journalist’ in an email interview, Prem Prakash spoke to Asian voice about his journey so far and the paradigm shift in news.
How would you describe the paradigm shift over your last seven decades in journalism as a multimedia journalist, especially from the time you started as a photojournalist?
Well, everything has changed about how journalism is practiced, while the principles of journalism remain the same. The most striking feature is technology. When I started my career, I had to travel to Europe to equip myself with the knowledge and wherewithal about cameras, about processing film, about lighting. I had limited resources but a burning desire to learn as much as I could to translate that in my work back in India. Journalism in India those days was guided by highly respected editors-to name a few Mr. Kasturi Rangan of Hindu, Mr. Frank Moraes of the Indian Express, Mr. S. Mulgaokar of the Hindustan Times and Mr. D.R. Mankekar of the Times of India. we had to be careful about our facts , truthfulness and be on location.
The tearing hurry today to break news first, ahead of competition is the same today. However the checks and balances some of us put into practice before sending out our reports back then were sharper, more stringent than today. The competition is so intense today that live telecasts and immediate posting of news on social media without proper verifications have become the norm rather than the exception. The advent of social Media where anyone- journalist or no journalist- can post anything. This has given a big rise to fake news and thus lack of confidence in journalists as purveyors of truth and facts.
In your book, you write - “my aim was to correct this distorted image of India” when you launched ANI. What does it take for a journalist to report objectively, while supporting the best interests of the nation?
When I said distorted image, I was quite specific, it was what is described now as ‘fake news’ or just one sided news. The entire focus of foreign reporters in the fifties and even sixties used to be on the ‘exotic’ part of India and really nothing more. So it was all cliches you could imagine, snake charmers, caparisoned elephants, village poverty, urban slums, droughts, famines etc. Yes, these existed in India but there was more to India. Focussing only on one aspect of India and being blind to the rest was inaccurate reporting but if you reported for example on India’s food security programme it was seen with suspicion. Industrialisation was happening at a fast pace with Nehru setting up public sector units but nobody was interested in India making its rapid progress. When Indira Gandhi took India further towards socialism, she became enemy number one for the western world. In a small way I did try my best to cover not just the natural and man made disasters in India in the decades spanning 50’s to 70’s when mostly international news interest from India focussed on that. I was lucky that I mostly worked with editors in London who were open to suggestions from me on stories to cover.
With reference to the previous question, since you have worked during the tenure of both Nehru and Modi, what has your experience taught you about reporting about people in power , while they are in power? Can there be a possibility of conflict of interest?
Yes of course there are times when conflicts occur because by nature politicians and journalists are supposed to be adversaries. So even though we might socialise with people in power, we have to report on them and that often brings us in conflict with them. I have had several brushes with officials and politicians. Some bear grudges for long, some are mature enough to look beyond a story. I have mentioned a few in my book but there were many times I was ticked off by politicians who I thought were intelligent enough to value relationships and friendships. When I started my career, like most Indians in the late forties and early fifties I had great admiration for PM Nehru. He was one of our founding fathers, first Prime Minister and a very charismatic person. I am also an audio visual journalist and Nehru worked his charm when on camera, like a pro. To a large extent it is the same with Modi. He knows camera angles, he knows how to pause between sentences for impact. I haven’t however filmed Modi or reported during his tenure as Prime Minister. But ANI has done very successfully.
Withstanding the current media scenario when journalists are being called ‘political prisoners’ and media trials have dominated manufacturing consent in India, where do you think the state of the fourth pillar of democracy stands in context of “Freedom of Speech and Expression”?
No journalist is content with the amount of freedom he or she has. And this is not unique to India. In every democracy whether western or eastern the conflict between governments and the press is always tilted in favour of governments. I have lived through the Emergency era in India, when I had to go into exile, so I value freedoms that we all have. I have great hopes for our media. From total state run television and radio till the 90’s we have a booming media industry. India has nearly 200 TV News channels in various languages. When print media has collapsed all over the world, in India it is still thriving. Our judiciary is robust and our media is sharp. All governments, present one including, know that you can be persuasive with the media at best, cracking down on media can only bring short term gains, in the long term which means a few months at best, it never pays. And PM Modi, his cabinet and his party has been in the opposition for many years. They will not jeopardise it by crushing the media or any other institution in the country.
What kind of responsibility lies with you to ensure that the news is fact checked and also breaks just in time to reach the rest of the media in the country?
I am very proud of where we are with ANI today. We have developed an expertise and fine tuned it. Which is why you will see we have not expanded beyond news. It's not as if we opened several TV channels or got into publishing, which wouldn’t have been difficult. We have not deviated from our core competence. News agency work is ego-crushing! Our reporters are camerapersons and are faceless entities. They are journalists for the love of journalism, what else can you say about reporters who slog for long hours getting a story, filing it and then seeing it in print or tv with an anchor from a channel claiming it as his or her channel’s exclusive report?!
In the contemporary scenario where there’s fear of being arrested while writing a story or making a tweet or exchanging WhatsApp messages with coworkers, what do you think is the future of journalism?
Fact check, fact check, fact check. That would be my advice. It is a tricky situation these days anywhere in the world, as the pressure to be first with the news is so much that many journalists don’t go through with the SOPs that should be mandatory. Also the desire to be sensational with every story that is in the news is detrimental to the future of journalism. We all had to watch out for ‘plants’ on us. But mostly these ‘plants’ were by the government. Now, these ‘plants’ are from multiple sources. Electronic communication brings with it dangers of misrepresentation. Nothing is fool-proof. But I am not an alarmist. I am sure journalists will ensure that they have been to the location, seen it themselves and then report the item truthfully. Checks and balances should be put in place by editors as was done by the great names i mentioned earlier.
