Free media needs leaders willing to answer and reporters who can question

While we have seen leaders who are unwilling to answer questions, we have also seen reporters who are unwilling to ask good questions

The daily White House press briefing is a thing of legend, shown in hundreds of Hollywood movies. Around lunchtime every weekday, 100 reporters from the wire agencies, news and cable networks and the national newspapers gather to quiz the American president’s press secretary, standing at a lectern in front of that famous blue backdrop, on everything from the leader’s actions in a war to the state of the economy. 

In difficult times — like the Lewinsky scandal during the Clinton administration, and I suppose pretty much every day since Donald Trump took office — the press secretary picks out reporters who are most likely to ask lollipop questions. 

Last year, The New Yorker reported this: 

“The paradigmatic example of a floater (a reporter without a fixed seating place) is Raghubir Goyal, an amiable, somewhat absent-minded man in his sixties. Goyal claims to represent the India Globe, a newspaper that, as far as anyone can tell, is defunct. Nevertheless, he has attended briefings since the Carter Administration, and has asked so many questions about Indo-American relations that his name has become a verb. “To Goyal”: to seek out a reporter who is likely to provide a friendly question, or a moment of comic relief. All press secretaries get cornered, and all have, on occasion, Goyaled their way out.”

Goyal can be relied on to ask rubbish. At one press briefing a few months ago, he invited the current press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to any Indian restaurant in the United States, after she was asked to leave a restaurant by an owner who dislikes her boss’s policies. In 2016 this was reported: 

“Today is the International Day of Yoga … Well, Prime Minister Modi proposed to the United Nations, and it was declared by the UN. And when he addressed the US Congress, he said that over 30 million Americans practice yoga today, which, of course, can eliminate most of their medical bills and stress and mental health if it’s practiced properly... Any message from the President on this day? Because even the First Lady and the First Family, they have been working in the White House and practice this,” Mr Goyal asked. 

India is awfully familiar with ‘reporters’ of the Goyal type. They see their job as an extension of the government policy and it is not a surprise that leaders like to have them around. 

I am writing this because under Mr Trump, the daily briefing has vanished. It was held once in November and once in December. The president does not feel the need to expose himself to questioning by the free press and when he feels like putting something out one-sided, he uses his Twitter account or telephones Fox News. 

In India, a similar situation has come about in the last few years. The prime minister does not take questions directly or indirectly as at the daily White House press briefing. To my knowledge, he has not held a single press conference since taking office. When the media needs to be engaged with, only friendly individuals are given interviews. 

To be fair to him even Manmohan Singh before him did not have many press conferences and by my count had only three in his decade in office. 
 

The disadvantages of exposing yourself to a press conference are several. One cannot dominate the conversation, and one must be prepared for several types of questions. 

Illustration by Binay Sinha

Press conferences are planned and that means reporters can research and produce a question on the basis of hard facts that can be difficult to explain away. 

It is much easier to Goyal out your difficulties. Mr Modi had an interview recently by a wire agency which was reported widely. A wire agency is not and should not be adversarial but the questions here seemed to be particularly anodyne and the interview more akin to stenography. 

This exchange was reported: “Asked whether the upcoming Lok Sabha polls would be 'anybody but Modi' contest as projected by the opposition parties, he said, 'It is going to be janta (public) versus gathbandhan (coalition). Modi is just a manifestation of public love and blessings.'"

An alert reporter should definitely have asked the prime minister this question: “Sir, why do you always refer to yourself in the third person?”

On the issue that is so troubling the world, that of  the lynchings in India, Mr Modi was allowed to get away by saying this:

"Any such incident does not reflect well on a civilised society. No voice ever should support such incidents. This is totally wrong and totally condemnable.” But he chose to qualify this by adding: "Did it (mob lynching) start after 2014? This is a result of ills within society. For improving this situation, we should all work collectively."

A more prepared reporter would have put the facts in front rather than accept homilies. On beef-related lynchings, the facts are as follows:

• In 2012 one incident, two victims, no death; in 2013, two incidents, one victim and zero death; 
• In 2014, three incidents, 11 victims and zero death; in 2015, 13 incidents, 49 victims and 11 death; in 2016, 30 incidents, 67 victims and nine deaths; in 2017, 43 incidents, 108 victims and 13 deaths; in 2018, 28 incidents, 52 victims and 12 deaths.

Muslims are 54 per cent of all victims. The pattern is obvious, the trend is crystal clear and the data unambiguous. The pushing by the BJP of the beef ban has led to the murder of Indians. It is embarrassing that the media should let the prime minister of a democracy get away with it the way Mr Modi has been allowed to get away.

Not for a moment am I in favour of the bombast and fake anger that is the staple of our news anchors. And I do not like the manner in which most reporters in India ask longwinded questions. But a free media works when two things happen: When the leaders open themselves to reporters; and when reporters use the opportunity to not allow themselves to be Goyaled.