Both I would say, like in any other profession. However. there is a growing feeling in the world capitals — from Washington to New Delhi and Islamabad — that the number of lapdogs are increasing rather dramatically. Can understand this trend…Life becomes cushy and returns become better!!! But there will always be sincere hardworking watchdogs…and let us not forget them!
In India the preference to be a lapdog was accelerated after “The Emergency” when Press Censorship was declared in the 1970s. In the famous words of the Opposition leader, Mr L.K. Advani, the Press Corps “when asked to bend began to crawl.”
Now in his review of Eric Boehlert’s new book Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush , Jack Shafer writes in Slate: “The Washington press corps — the thousands of reporters working within a two-mile radius of my M Street NW office — deserves every ugly thing written about it. Taken collectively, they kowtow, fawn, and grovel to the powerful. They allow their sources to compromise their independence. They’re glib. They’re lazy. They possess no sense of history and little sense of scale. They often get the story wrong.
“(The book by Eric Boehlert)amply catalogs the Washington press corps failings in reporting Plamegate, the Iraq war run-up, Hurricane Katrina, the ‘Swift Boat’ campaign, Bush’s military record, and more. His thesis is that ‘the mainstream news media completely lost their bearings during the Bush years and abdicated their Fourth Estate responsibility to report without fear or favor and to ask uncomfortable questions to people in power.’
“…The mainstream media that Boehlert pummels usually turns out to be TV news and the various barking-head commentary programs….I’ll keep this book on my desk and thumb it whenever I need a solid example of Bush-era press perfidy. But I don’t have additional use…It’s such a preposterous and overreaching thesis, I refuse to buy it. Hell, I can’t even bring myself to look at the price tag.”
Salon has published excerpts from the new book Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush. The Editor of Salon says: “Cowardly and clueless, the U.S. media abandoned its post as Bush led the country into a disastrous war. A look inside one of the great journalistic collapses of our time.”
And now a few quotes from elsewhere:
“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” ~Abbott Joseph Liebling, “Do You Belong in Journalism?” New Yorker, 4 May 1960
“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” ~John F. Kennedy
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” ~Voltaire
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.