He stated, “Without journalists, society and their members are relegated to an inferior state of awareness and intellect.”
“A journalist’s work does not just inform; it fortifies the very foundation of democracy,” said former Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Wednesday. He spoke at the 25th Business Standard-Seema Nazareth Award for Excellence in Journalism, 2024 about how journalism plays a crucial role in society.
Journalism and Its Role in Democracy
While delivering the keynote address on the topic “Journalism as the mainstay of democracy,” Chandrachud highlighted the importance of journalists in keeping people informed.
He stated, “Without journalists, society and their members are relegated to an inferior state of awareness and intellect.”
He also pointed out the increasing challenges faced by journalists in today’s digital age. The need to balance “truth with attention, ethics with urgency, and integrity with commerce“ is what will shape the future of democracy.
Chandrachud described journalists as “one of the oldest content creators” who go beyond simply reporting facts.
He said, “Journalists engage in drawing crucial linkages between facts and subjective perception. They interpret facts from historical and economic perspectives.”
He explained that “the synthesis of raw facts with journalistic interpretation is a quest to uncover truths. The quality of our truths defines the health of our democracy.”
Journalism and the Digital Age
The former CJI stressed that democracy is built on a foundation of shared reality, where journalism plays a key role in “upholding truth even as attention becomes the most sought after currency of the digital age.“
He spoke about how the rise of social media has led to “unprecedented pressure on journalism to compete for attention in an ecosystem dominated by sensationalism, clickbait and viral misinformation.”
He explained that social media thrives on “two key elements – personal data, and personal attention.” Platforms use “attention mining to keep the entire online ecosystem alive.”
With artificial intelligence (AI) further changing the media space, he remarked that
“attention has emerged as a tangible asset in the 21st century… a new intellectual property.”
Journalists now face the challenge of “capturing attention while maintaining fidelity to the truth.” Chandrachud warned, “If the media fails to retain attention, truth risks fading into irrelevance.”
However, he also cautioned, “If the media bends truth to gain attention, it erodes the very foundation upon which a democracy stands and survives.”
He noted that “truths are the economy in which democratic dialogue is transacted.”
Chandrachud acknowledged the financial difficulties faced by the news industry.
“Media organisations, like any other enterprise, must survive financially,” he said.
They need to “attract readers, secure advertising revenue and compete with platforms that are not bound by the same ethical constraints.”
This leads to a “paradox,” where quality journalism, which relies on thorough research and fact-checking, often takes longer to publish than fast-paced viral content.
He said, “Truth is complex, information-heavy, and often unexciting.”
To maintain journalistic integrity, he suggested essential safeguards:
- Converting ethical principles into enforceable policies for media organizations.
- Transparency in funding sources.
- Maintaining editorial independence by separating business interests from journalistic work.
- Investing in investigative journalism despite its high costs.
He gave the example of The Washington Post, which showed
“how an unhealthy relation between politics and businessmen can corrupt the independence of media organisations.”
He stressed, “Institutions that have maintained credibility have done so by prioritising long-term trust over short-term gains under enormous pressure from money, muscle and politics.”
“Journalism does not merely react to market forces. It shapes them. But the consequence of its corruption is in the undoing of the democracy in which it operates.”
Business Standard-Seema Nazareth Award 2024 Winners
During the event, the Business Standard-Seema Nazareth Award for Excellence in Journalism 2024 was given to Senior Correspondent Shiva Rajora from New Delhi. The award includes a cash prize of Rs 75,000, a silver pen, and a citation.
This annual award honors young journalists from Business Standard and is named after Seema Nazareth, a journalist who passed away on March 19, 1999.
The jury praised Rajora for
“bringing rare vitality to labour-sector reporting with his engaging and insightful stories.”
They commended his reports on Employees Provident Fund reform, the integration of welfare schemes into the e-Shram portal, and the struggles of unorganised sector workers and labour unions.
A Special Mention award was given to Senior Sub Editor Anushka Bhardwaj, who also works in New Delhi. She received a cash prize of Rs 15,000 and a citation.
The jury noted, “She has a gift for exploring special angles and looking beyond the obvious to report colourful but also meaningful stories.”
They praised her diverse coverage of topics including cricket, language politics, scams, and the Paralympics.
They also appreciated her “ability to go deep to present an issue with humour and sparkle but also sensitive understanding.”
Seema Nazareth’s father, P A Nazareth, gave the vote of thanks. He recalled that the first award was presented at Rashtrapati Bhavan by then President K R Narayanan on Seema’s birthday, February 21.
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He also shared that over the years, one of the personalities who conferred the award was the great-grandson of Russian author Leo Tolstoy.
During his speech, Chandrachud quoted from a poem titled “I Dream of Making a Mark Before I Die,” written by Seema Nazareth a few months before her passing.
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