![Sample our Communication Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, 2013 & 2014 volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5927/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Information-Science2.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
According to the 2023 World Press Freedom Index rankings by the RSF, India ranks 161 out of 180 countries. One of the important indicators that the index bases the ranking on is the level of violence against the journalists and their overall safety. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian government cracked down on the press by reprimanding any form of dissent regarding their policies. This has resulted in journalists from various parts of the country being arrested, detained, and harassed. The much-debated Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897 and Disaster Management Act, 2005 were implemented to invoke curbs to contain the spread of coronavirus in India. The paper examines the consequences of the infodemic on the safety of journalists in the context of declining press freedom in the country in the context of the aforementioned acts. The analysis of cases focuses on highlighting how the laws introduced to “contain” the spread of the virus has been used as a tool to gatekeep the truth regarding the implementation of coronavirus policies by way of stifling the voice of journalists. The analysis reveals how various legal, political, and economic factors contribute to the lack of safety of journalists in the country.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Chahat Rana, “How the Modi Government’s Failure to Act Led to India’s Covid-19 Catastrophe,” The Caravan, June 1, 2021, https://caravanmagazine.in/health/modi-government-failure-led-india-covid-19-catastrophe.
2 Khan, Ruhi, and Danish Khan. “India Cannot Breathe. Is the Media Choking It Further?” Media@LSE, May 7, 2021. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2021/05/07/india-cannot-breathe-is-the-media-choking-it-further/.
3 Bhupen Singh, “Media in the Time of Covid-19,” Economic and Political Weekly, December 24, 2020, https://www.epw.in/engage/article/media-time-covid-19.
4 See note 3.
5 Chowdhury, Debasish Roy. “India’s Media Is Also Responsible for the COVID-19 Crisis.” Time. Time, May 3, 2021. https://time.com/6033152/india-media-covid-19/.
6 Raza, Danish. “India Arrests Dozens of Journalists in Clampdown on Critics of Covid-19 Response.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, July 31, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/31/india-arrests-50-journalists-in-clampdown-on-critics-of-covid-19-response.
7 1450 Journalists Killed. Committee to Protect Journalists, https://cpj.org/data/killed/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5D=Confirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&start_year=1992&end_year=2022&group_by=year (accessed August 3, 2022).
8 “Free Press ‘a Cornerstone’ of Democratic Societies, UN Says,” United Nations (United Nations, 2021), https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/05/1091132.
9 Sarah Repucci, “Media Freedom: A Downward Spiral,” Freedom House, 2019, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-and-media/2019/media-freedom-downward-spiral.
10 Repucci, 1.
11 “India among Most Dangerous Countries for Journalists, Says Media Watchdog Reporters without Borders,” Scroll.in (Scroll.in, December 17, 2021), https://scroll.in/latest/1013070/record-number-of-488-journalists-detained-in-2021-says-media-watchdog-reporters-without-borders.
12 Jennifer Dunham, “Killers of Journalists Still Get Away with Murder,” Committee to Protect Journalists, November 5, 2021, https://cpj.org/reports/2021/10/killers-of-journalists-still-get-away-with-murder/#:~:text=CPJ's%20Global%20Impunity%20Index%20calculates,%2C%202021%2C%20and%20remain%20unsolved.
13 C. S. Murthy, “Safety and Security of Journalists: Yet Awaiting Intervention from Indian Academy and Industry,” Asia Pacific Media Educator 28, no. 1 (2018): 131–49, https://doi.org/10.1177/1326365×18772359, 3.
14 UN, “Journalism, Press Freedom and COVID-19” (UN, 2021), https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/unesco_covid_brief_en.pdf, 2.
15 UN, 12.
16 “Centre Doesn’t Agree with India’s Rank in World Press Freedom Index: I&B Minister,” The Wire, 2021, https://thewire.in/media/centre-doesnt-agree-with-indias-rank-in-world-press-freedom-index-ib-minister.
17 Sumit Galhotra and Raksha Kumar, “Dangerous Pursuit,” Committee to Protect Journalists, August 29, 2016, https://cpj.org/reports/2016/08/dangerous-pursuit/, 3.
18 D.C. Sharma et al., “Fighting Infodemic: Need for Robust Health Journalism in India,” Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews 14, no. 5 (2020): pp. 1445–7, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsx.2020.07.039, 3.
19 Mark Coddington and Seth Lewis, “How the Pandemic (Sort of) Changed the Way We Consume News,” Nieman Lab, 2021, https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/08/how-the-pandemic-sort-of-changed-the-way-we-consume-news/.
20 Lindsay Y. Dhanani and Berkeley Franz, “The Role of News Consumption and Trust in Public Health Leadership in Shaping COVID-19 Knowledge and Prejudice,” Frontiers in Psychology 11 (2020), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.560828, 2.
21 Sharma et al., 3
22 “Infodemic,” World Health Organization, 2020.
23 Anita Rampal, “We Are Fighting an Infodemic in the Time of ‘Coronoia’,” The Wire, 2020, https://thewire.in/media/coronavirus-infodemic-misinformation.
24 Daniele Orso et al., “Infodemic and the Spread of Fake News in the COVID-19-ERA,” European Journal of Emergency Medicine 27, no. 5 (2020): 327–28, https://doi.org/10.1097/mej.0000000000000713, 1.
25 Murali Krishnan, “Covid: Misinformation Complicates India’s Fight against Pandemic: DW: 03.05.2021,” DW, 2021, https://www.dw.com/en/india-covid-misinformation/a-57414876.
26 Kaifia Ancer Laskar and Mohammad Reyaz, “Mapping the Fake News Infodemic amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of Indian Fact-Checking Websites,” Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 14, no. 1 (January 2021): 93–116, https://doi.org/10.1386/jammr_00026_1, 3.
27 Mudit Kapoor and Shamika Ravi, “Making Waves in India: Media and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Brookings, July 23, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/research/making-waves-in-india-media-and-the-covid-19-pandemic/.
28 Kalpana Sharma, “A Year on, Indian Media Is Still to Tell the Full Story of the Lockdown,” Newslaundry, 2021, https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/03/18/a-year-on-indian-media-is-still-to-tell-the-full-story-of-the-lockdown.
29 See note 20.
30 Kalpana Sharma, “Big Media as a Public Watchdog: No Bark, No Bite,” Newslaundry, 2021, https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/10/28/indian-media-as-a-public-watchdog-no-bark-no-bite.
31 See note 23 above.
32 Bhupen Singh, “Media in the Time of Covid-19,” Economic and Political Weekly, December 24, 2020, https://www.epw.in/engage/article/media-time-covid-19.
33 See note 25 above.
34 See note 25 above.
35 Mythreyee Ramesh, “Bodies in Ganga to ‘Real’ Death Toll: How Dainik Bhaskar Led Covid Coverage,” TheQuint, July 22, 2021, https://www.thequint.com/news/india/how-dainik-bhaskar-led-covid-coverage-in-india.
36 Erik Crouch, “Indian Finance Authorities Raid Offices of Newslaundry and Newsclick Websites,” Committee to Protect Journalists, September 13, 2021, https://cpj.org/2021/09/indian-finance-authorities-raid-offices-of-newslaundry-and-newsclick-websites/.
37 “Democracy Report 2022,” V-Dem, March 2022, https://v-dem.net/media/publications/dr_2022.pdf, 15.
38 Sonwalkar, Prasun. “Indian Journalism in the Colonial Crucible.” Journalism Studies 16, no. 5 (2015): 624–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670x.2015.1054159.
39 Sonwalkar, 626.
40 Akhtar, M. Javaid, Azra Asghar Ali, and Shahnaz Akhtar. “The Role of Vernacular Press in the Subcontinent during the British Rule: A Study of Perceptions.” Pakistan Historical Society. Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 59 (2011): 33.
41 See note 41 above.
42 K S, Mochish. (2022). Journalism and Public Health Crises: Media and the Covid-19 Pandemic in India. Social Scientist 50, no. 1–2, Jan–Feb 2022, https://socialscientistindia.org/volumes-and-issues/2838/.
43 Prateek Goyal, “The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 Needs an Urgent Overhaul,” Economic and Political Weekly, December 24, 2020, https://www.epw.in/engage/article/epidemic-diseases-act-1897-needs-urgent-overhaul.
44 See note 43 above.
45 See note 43 above.
46 See note 40 above.
47 See note 40 above.
48 John, Arshu. “Crackdown amid Corona: Kashmir Police Book Photojournalist Masrat Zahra under UAPA to Send a Message.” The Caravan, April 20, 2020. https://caravanmagazine.in/media/kashmir-fir-photojournalist-masrat-zahra-crackdown-coronavirus.
49 Subhradipta Sarkar and Archana Sarma, “Disaster Management Act, 2005,” Economic and Political Weekly, September 2, 2006, https://www.epw.in/journal/2006/35/commentary/disaster-management-act-2005.html.
50 Yin, Robert K. “Discovering the Future of the Case Study. Method in Evaluation Research.” Evaluation Practice 15, no. 3 (1994): 283–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/109821409401500309.
51 Stake, Robert E. “The Case Study Method in Social Inquiry.” Educational Researcher 7, no. 2 (1978): 5–8. https://doi.org/10.2307/1174340.
52 Meyer, Christine Benedichte. “A Case in Case Study Methodology.” Field Methods 13, no. 4 (2001): 329–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822×0101300402.
53 See note 52 above.
54 “Tamil Nadu Police Jails News Portal Founder for Stories on Lockdown Shortcomings,” The Wire, 2020, https://thewire.in/media/coimbatore-founder-of-news-portal-arrested-for-reporting-on-governments-handling-of-covid-19.
55 See note 34 above.
56 Jerald Aruldass, “No Timely and Adequate Food, Allege UG and PG Student Doctors at Cmch Hostel,” SimpliCity, April 14, 2020, https://simplicity.in/coimbatore/english/news/64010/No-timely-and-adequate-food-allege-UG-and-PG-Student-Doctors-at-CMCH-Hostel.
57 Jerald Aruldass, “Looting at Ration Shops during Lockdown, Govt’s Grant of Rs.1000 Swindled, Lament Public,” simplicity.in, April 18, 2020, https://simplicity.in/coimbatore/english/news/64144/.
58 Sanyukta Dharmadhikari, “Andaman Journalist Arrested for Asking Covid-19 Related Question on Twitter?,” The News Minute, April 28, 2020, https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/andaman-journalist-arrested-asking-covid-19-related-question-twitter-123481.
59 See note 38 above.
60 Jennifer Dunham, “Authorities in India Continue to Investigate, Detain Journalists amid Covid-19 Pandemic,” Committee to Protect Journalists, May 28, 2020, https://cpj.org/2020/05/authorities-in-india-continue-to-investigate-detain-journalists-amid-covid-19-pandemic/.
61 Ayush Tiwari, “Himachal Pradesh’s Journalists Face FIRs, Harassment for Reporting on Government Failures,” Newslaundry, 2020, https://www.newslaundry.com/topic/himachal-pradesh.
62 See note 41 above.
63 See note 41 above.
64 See note 41 above.
65 See note 41 above.
66 Jennifer Dunham, “Authorities in India Continue to Investigate, Detain Journalists amid Covid-19 Pandemic,” Committee to Protect Journalists, May 28, 2020, https://cpj.org/2020/05/authorities-in-india-continue-to-investigate-detain-journalists-amid-covid-19-pandemic/.
67 Danish Raza, “India Arrests Dozens of Journalists in Clampdown on Critics of Covid-19 Response,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, July 31, 2020), https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/31/india-arrests-50-journalists-in-clampdown-on-critics-of-covid-19-response.
68 Sukanya Shantha, “During Lockdown, Maharashtra Has Cracked down on Journalists and Media,” The Wire, 2020, https://thewire.in/media/covid-19-lockdown-maharashtra-crackdown-journalists-media-freedom-ncp-congress-shiv-sena.
69 Erik Crouch, “Indian Journalist Dhaval Patel Arrested, Charged with Sedition,” Committee to Protect Journalists, May 13, 2020, https://cpj.org/2020/05/indian-journalist-dhaval-patel-arrested-charged-wi/.
70 See note 51 above.
71 “Up: FIR against Journalist for Report on Mismanagement at Quarantine Centre,” The Wire, 2020, https://thewire.in/media/up-fir-against-journalist-for-report-on-mismanagement-at-quarantine-centre.
72 See note 50 above.
73 “‘How Can ABP Majha’s Rahul Kulkarni Be Blamed … ’: Siddharth Vardarajan Defends Journalist Arrested in Maharashtra,” Free Press Journal, 2020, https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/how-can-abp-majhas-rahul-kulkarni-be-blamed-siddharth-vardarajan-defends-journalist-arrested-in-maharashtra.
74 Sukanya Shantha, “Mumbai Police Exonerates Journalist Arrested for ‘Fake News’, Says Fir Based on ‘Mistaken Facts’,” The Wire, 2020, https://thewire.in/media/mumbai-police-exonerates-journalist-arrested-for-generating-fake-news.
75 Smita Gupta, “Post-Liberalisation India: How Free Is the Media?,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 28, no. 2 (2005): 283–300, https://doi.org/10.1080/00856400500189979, 6.
76 Tiwari, Ayush. “‘Gagging the Media’: A List of Indian Journalists Booked, Arrested, Assaulted during the Lockdown.” Newslaundry, 2020. https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/05/07/gagging-the-media-a-list-of-indian-journalists-booked-arrested-assaulted-during-the-lockdown.
77 P Sainath, “Open Letter to the Chief Justice of India,” People’s Archive of Rural India, December 23, 2021, https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/open-letter-to-the-chief-justice-of-india/.
78 KS Mochish, “The Need for a Proactive Media during a Public Health Crisis,” NewsClick, May 11, 2020, https://www.newsclick.in/The-need-proactive-media-during-public-health-crisis.