By Xavier Jayaraj

Rome: On November 5, several US media channels stopped the live telecast of President Trump’s speech midway. They daringly stated that the president was spreading disinformation and telling ‘lies after lies after lies.’

In his 17-minute address, President Trump unleashed a deluge of claims and spoke of ‘illegal votes’ and ‘stealing of the election’ by the Democrats. He conveniently declared “if you count the ‘legal’ votes, I easily win.” He prematurely claimed that he has won, even while the votes were still being counted in some states.

While the drama was still on, it was simply amazing to see several TV anchors, especially ABC, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC pulling their ear plugs and saying “let’s stop the telecast of these ‘lies’ being spread by the president across the nation.”

For me as an Indian, this was absolutely amazing. It was so wonderful to see the TV anchors being genuine, sincere and truthful to their conscience and confident of the process and norms of democracy. Speaking truth plainly and simply with no hesitation and no fears. No fear of losing their jobs or being killed by any “emperor’s goons.”

Brian Williams, the anchor of MSNBC said, “OK, here we are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the president of the United States but correcting the president of the United States.”

ABC and NBC news anchors also pulled the plug on their live coverage of Trump.

They boldly and resolutely stated that the president’s claims were ‘baseless, false and without any evidence. ‘

CNN anchor Jake Tapper, very candidly said, “What a sad night for the United States of America to hear their President to falsely accuse people of trying to steal the election, while viciously attacking democracy with this feast of falsehood. Lie after lie after lie. Pathetic.”

The Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank in his opinion article writes clearly,

“Ousting a demagogue with the loudest megaphone in the land is not an easy undertaking. Trump’s opponents had to overcome an unprecedented stream of disinformation and falsehoods from the president, even as his party normalized the assaults on truth, on facts, on science, on expertise. Trump’s opponents were up against a strongman who used the Justice Department, diplomats and the intelligence community to harass political opponents, who used federal police to suppress public demonstrations, who engaged in a massive campaign of voter intimidation and suppression, and who used government powers for political advantage: enlisting government employees to campaign for him, sabotaging postal operations, putting his name on taxpayer-funded checks, using the White House for a party convention. And Trump’s opponents had to contend with a Fox News cheering section and social-media landscape that insulated millions from reality.
Over time, the damage done to institutions, to alliances, to elections, to the federal workforce, to congressional power and to courts should be reversible. Had Trump won a second term, we may not have been able to recover. “I feel very confident the United States can repair after one term,” Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has said. “Two terms? I would be a little bit more worried.”

Hats off to these courageous American journalists and their dedication to unbiased journalism. What amazing press freedom with the liberty ‘to speak truth to power’!

A question that keeps daunting me is, ‘Would any of the TV anchors or news channels have the same courage to do this in India? Or more to the point, would they ever be allowed to speak the truth without being removed from their jobs or imprisoned, or lynched or even murdered like Gauri Lankesh for speaking out their conscience?’

In India, where the Prime Minister has not given a single press conference for more than 6 years, journalists and the major media houses are ever willing to crawl before the emperor. In fact, they are cleverly ‘managed’ to remain well trained ‘parrots’ who speak only in praise of the emperor. There are a few favoured TV anchors who conduct ‘media courts’ and declare anyone who critiques the government as ‘anti-nationals’.

The draconian law “Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act” [UAPA] was amended in 2019 in order to suit the purpose of the fascists, allowing the government to designate any individual as a terrorist and keep them in prison without a trial. Under this act, a large number of tribal/dalit and human rights activists, student leaders and journalists have been put in prison for months and even years, without any trial.

It is exactly a month since Father. Stan Swamy, an 83 year-old Jesuit, was arrested and sent to prison on October 9 under this UAPA. Fr. Stan, who worked for more than four decades ‘speaking truth to power’, protecting the rights of the adivasis, recently asked the prison authorities and the court to be allowed to use a straw and sipper, as he cannot hold a glass due to Parkinson’s disease.

It is absolutely shocking that for such a harmless basic need of an aged and ailing person, the prosecution sought 20 days to reply and worse still the court allowed this shameful delay. What a disgrace? Yet our leaders feel proud to claim that everyone is equal before law.

While all these activists are left languishing in the prison for months without trial or even a charge sheet, the arrest of the rabid pro government Republic TV editor Arnab Goswami for his involvement in the abetment of suicide receives immediate political uproar from the ruling BJP. Almost all the ministers of the central government call it ‘an assault on the freedom of press’. The fact is that the arrest is simply for an alleged criminal act of Arnab Goswami, who is a propagandist and favorite media ‘judge’ of the ruling government, who rants and raves in an unbalanced manner, has nothing to do with the freedom of press.

It is in this context we must admire the freedom of the press as expressed in United States to critique the persons who in power. By critiquing the President and his words, they are not speaking against the nation. Rather they are trying to protect the nation and the democracy from being misinformed by the person in power, since naive people believe the President will not tell such blatant lies. By speaking out against obvious falshood they express their love for the country rather than the individual.

Lack of criticism through press freedom destroys the soul and spirit of a country. This is becoming real in India, when we know that freedom of Press index has been on the decline from 136th position in 2015 to 138 in 2018 and 142 in 2020 out of 180 countries. The day when press freedom is suppressed, in the name of nationalism, the nation is getting into fascistic dictatorship betraying democracy.

(Jesuit Father Xavier Jeyaraj is the secretary of the congregation’s department of Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat in Rome. He belongs to the Calcutta Jesuit province.)