Nepali journalism should learn lessons from Anuja scandal and move forward, rather than ridiculing a group of newspapers (or counter-attacking those who choose to ridicule) because this is the state of Nepali journalism – not only of a reporter or a newspaper
The Story
Nepal’s top national daily Kantipur and it’s sister publication The Kathmandu Post published a news report on its frontpage anchor position about Anuja Baniya who returned 9.1 million rupees and a diamond necklace to the owner after finding them abandoned in a public bus. President Dr Ram Baran Yadav himself called her to thank her – a news that was carried by almost all newspapers with backgrounder as published by Kantipur.
Soon after, there were news that stated police is investigating. The news turned out to be fake one and Kantipur did a praiseworthy job by publishing apology on frontpage stating that the story was untrue as the characters misled then.
The Aftermath
Suddenly everyone started seeing flaws in the story. The story was unbalanced, the story didn’t meet the basic criteria of fact-checking or ABC or 5WH according to journalistic principles. There were opinion articles and statuses on social media ridiculing Kantipur and/or journalism.
The old questionable news of past were thrown up in the air to prove that Nepali media are still infant. And, yes, there were some defenses for Kantipur.
Mistake? O, yes.
It was a mistake by Kantipur, there is no doubt about it. Given that Kantipur is the top daily of Nepal with huge impact, it could have done a little more fact-checking.
But to expect any media not to make mistake at all is not justifiable. As in any other sectors, journalists/media too learn from mistakes and when mistakes happens occasionally in media of countries like USA which has the long history of professional media and resources; mistake in Nepali media is certainly undesirable but not completely unavoidable given the short history, skills, and resources.
A step forward
As far as I know the apology published by Kantipur is the first honest acceptance of mistake in Nepali media. Some of the media have previously published apologies, most of the time going by the decision from Press Council of Nepal, but none were published as prominently as that of Kantipur’s.
This shows the professional honesty of Kantipur and this is certainly a step forward. Like it or not, they again proved the leader in Nepali journalism.
More mistakes
While constructive criticism focused on way-forward to Nepali media or lessons learned from the scandal were natural expectations from the pens of the media critics, they rather wasted their energy, ink and space of newspapers on preaching on media’s role and/or ridiculing Kantipur and/or criticizing Nepali journalism.
This, I take as more mistakes. It would have been valuable, and acceptable, had the critics raised the questions on the news as soon as it was published, or before police starting investigation, or even before Kantipur published the apology. When it is done after the apology, with focus on ridiculing journalism and/or Kantipur, rather that showing the way-forward, it looks a lame and biased writing.
Nepali journalism has a long way to go, but the media critics have still a longer road to go.
