Mr Jawed Naqvi wrote earlier this week about the evolution of journalistic treatment of facts. Much like the way that society has become more casual in other areas, journalists have become causal – some might say lazy with their reporting of facts. This is unfortunate because the facts are what readers are looking for.

A young British woman joined our newspaper as a reporter in Dubai. It was her first job as a journalist, but on pressure from the local owners the editor assigned her the sensitive crime beat. In one of her first stories, she came back with the following copy: “Two Asian women and five British ladies were arrested for prostitution by Dubai Police on Saturday.”

The Sri Lankan chief reporter ticked her off for a possible ethnic bias in the presumptuous use of “ladies” and “women” to (unwittingly perhaps) underscore the identities of the arrested persons. The Indian news editor detected a lack of consistency because the copy identified the nationality in one case and the geographical location of the other group. But the most instructive criticism came from the genial editor from Pakistan. He reminded the young reporter of the importance of the word alleged. She must insist on using it for anyone accused by police of wrongdoing till they were convicted by a court of law. It is curious how in South Asia, more than anywhere else, the good old-fashioned words of caution have all but disappeared from daily reportage.

Nowadays in India terrorists are arrested or killed in encounters, not alleged terrorists. A Pakistani or a Bangladeshi is accused of this or that crime, not a suspected Pakistani or suspected Bangladeshi. And within minutes of the tragedy last month, all the passengers in the Mangalore plane crash were declared killed, not feared killed. Why have we become so casual with facts? Or perhaps more worryingly, why do the media more and more lean on the side of the mob when they are not busy creating one with tendentious froth whipped up in the name of journalism? I couldn’t go to a three-day media seminar in Goa to discuss the theme “Media and Terrorism”. But I am sure some of these questions must have been asked.

It’s amazing how the home minister or his home secretary get away with toying with the media in Delhi. Their daily handouts are hardly ever put to the test. It’s not that the minister is infallible, quite the contrary in fact. Take the story from the other day about widespread reports of an attempt to shoot a popular “godman” near his Bangalore headquarters. The home minister with all the intelligence paraphernalia at his command confidently told the media that it was no assassination attempt but appeared to be the result of some rivalry between the godman’s disciples. The godman with his divine insights cried foul. He was certain his car if not him was the target of a bullet that hit someone nearby. However, now it turns out that it was a farmer in the neighbourhood trying to scare away stray dogs from attacking his cattle whose bullet crossed into the godman’s compound. This is a matter for investigation, not quick and easy claims. But it is not really the minister’s fault. It is for the media to ask vital questions. For example, when he claims that Maoists have blown up so many schools in the forests, it may be worthwhile to find out if the schools were serving as schools or had they been taken over by the security forces involved in the operations against the rebels.

The minister says the needle of suspicion points to Maoist subversion in a recent train tragedy in West Bengal. His ministerial colleague, the railway minister does not agree at all. And what is the point about a needle of suspicion anyway. A high-level commission which investigated Indira Gandhi’s assassination claimed a needle of suspicion pointed to her senior aide’s involvement. And if my memory is right, the aide remained a member of the sanctum sanctorum in her son’s establishment and continued to enjoy considerable clout with Sonia Gandhi.

Why are the media not asking the good old-fashioned questions that are still interestingly enough in great use in the West? Why did just one journalist have the courage and was allowed to ask of the prime minister at a supposedly open press conference a straight question: how come some named members of the security forces had not been arrested for human rights abuses in Kashmir – this in spite of the prime minister’s promise last year to declare Kashmir a zero tolerance zone for rights abuses?

Yes some journalists will argue back that this is a war zone and in a war on terror human rights of everyone cannot always be protected. Well then let’s look at other examples. Here’s one that does not cross wires with heavy responsibility of nationalist fervour. Take the case of a young schoolgirl Aarushi Talwar who was murdered in her house in May 2008. A few in the media immediately bought the police version with sexual innuendo thrown in. They blamed the servant. But then he too was found dead the next day. They then blamed the parents and the doctor couple had to face jail, courts, police, media before being let off. Even this last Saturday a newspaper persisted, this time asserting that the inquiry was looking at a former police officer and an eye doctor. No alleged. No suspected. No claimed or thought to be. Is Aarushi’s tragic saga a case of collateral damage in the era of terrorism?

Forget the elementary discipline of asking questions, how shall we explain a completely concocted story filed by an Indian news agency a day after an event when all the newspapers had already carried a faithful report of the event? The Press Trust of India claimed that writer Arundhati Roy had dared the government to arrest her for she would not give up her support for the Maoists.

Those who attended the meeting in Mumbai, wrote the following letter to the news agency.

“…The PTI report of the speech made by Arundhati Roy in Mumbai at a meeting organised by the CPDR (Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights) on June 2nd in Mumbai, was in many respects false. The report has ripped sentences and phrases from her presentation and re-arranged them in a way as to completely misrepresent what she said.

“At the meeting Roy went on record to say she was against the killing of innocents and as correctly reported in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, June 3, 2010, that “she was not here to defend killing by any side”. She said that the Maoists were the most militant end of a spectrum of resistance movements all of who are protesting corporate landgrab and that the government deals with all of them with antagonism and repression. Contrary to the PTI report, she did NOT say that “… she will continue to back the Maoists’ armed struggle even if she is put behind bars.” She did NOT call upon the government to put her in jail for supporting Maoists, nor did she offer support to the Maoists. In fact, the Times of India, Mumbai edition, June 3, 2010, reports that she stated that “Maoists have revolutionary methods but not a revolutionary vision” and “their mining policy is not very different from that of the state. They too would mine the bauxite instead of leaving it in the hills, which is what the people they are fighting for want”. The Times further correctly records that she said “We need a vision outside of capitalism as also communism”. Thus, in fact, she posed many serious questions to the Maoists…the most significant part and the real gist of her talk, have been completely and blithely ignored by your staff reporter…”

Oddly newspapers and TV channels whose own reporters had covered the event accurately, then went ahead and carried the agency’s concocted report the following day. One newspaper pounced on it with glee and said the “publicity seeking Arundhati Roy” wanted to be an Aung San Su Kyi. The question is, how do we trust the news any more?