You can be sued for what you write in a blog – so don’t misuse your freedom of expression.
By Pradyuman Maheshwari
If you are performing in public, be ready to be subjected to a critique. The word ‘performance’ could mean a stage act, it could be the food served at restaurants, a book, a film, a poetry, a blog, the print, electronic and online media and even the behaviour of people in public.
Sadly, there is no signed review of the news media carried in the mainstream media. By ‘signed’ I mean a column or a feature carrying the writer’s name. I was reading an interview in Sevanti Ninan’s Hoot with an anonymous blogger who spews venom at penpricks.blogspot.com. Penpricks, as the name suggests, is more than a passive watchdog of the Goan media; it barks. It recently conducted a ‘cash for editorials’ sting and from what I gather, has created quite a storm in the feni-and-fish-curry state.
The person behind it called me a few months back and asked me what s/he should do given the fact that a set of senior journos and assorted affluentials wanted to nail him/her. My advice: shut the site. Else, be prepared to face the consequences.
My reasons for offering an extreme alternative was because of my own experience with blogging and the legal opinion I gathered a few years back when the country’s largest media company threatened to sue me if I did not remove 20-odd posts.
I had various options ahead of me:
- knock off the damning posts. But they weren’t all damning. It’s just that the media conglomerate or its lawyers were on an overdrive and set to kill
- continue as is
- start it under a pseudonym or don’t take my name
- don’t take the real name of entities: so, call The Times of India, Chimes of India, CNN-IBN Rajdeep TV
Option 1 wasn’t acceptable to me. I didn’t want to knock off any of the posts. Option 4 was bizarre… I didn’t think it was a good idea.
Option 2 was like playing with fire. I was told that a publication on the internet is deemed ‘published’ from wherever it is viewed. Hence, if you see the site from Fiji, then the laws of that country would be applicable. Just one case was enough to see me going nuts, some 50 of them from various parts of India and the world would’ve made me well-travelled but would’ve seen me in debt for seven lives.
Option 3 was what had me scared. My legal eagles said that circumstantial evidence that can prove that I have written the stuff on the blog was enough to crucify me. Then there are also ways to detect where content is published from on the internet. Blog platforms and web hosting companies can be forced to reveal the identity of the computer that was used to post items. This is done by finding the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the machine which can then be traced with the assistance of the internet service provider.
All of this disillusioned me much as I didn’t want to change the name of the blog, plus I had since taken on assignments with the mainstream media (and hence become part of the Establishment). Personally I don’t think it’s right to critique without one’s name. I wouldn’t want to do it, and would rather not critique if I was forced to withhold my identity.
However, if I were to blog again on the media, I would be more careful about what I write. I’m wiser and am aware of the laws that govern any public ‘performance’, especially if it’s in writing. Weblogs may be a forum for free speech but the law doesn’t allow freedom of expression to be a free-for-all. I would be careful not to endlessly rubbish a news organisation regularly as that can be construed as a malicious campaign against it. More importantly, I would be careful of what I write – a blog is a media entity and as long as it is open for public viewing, it’s liable to be governed by the law of the land.
Crunch time!
Yes, it’s here. As annual sales targets of most media companies are being redrafted due to lower advertising volumes and rising newsprint prices, the signs of a slowdown are finally showing.
Last fortnight, the much-hyped JV of Network 18 and the Dainik Jagran group announced putting the proposed business paper project on the back burner. And on Friday, I read with much anguish that Business Standard was planning to shut its Gujarati print edition.
Akila Urankar, president of Business Standard, has confirmed the news to exchange4media. Her reasons: “The overall market environment and inflation in newsprint cost are the main reasons behind shutting down these editions. Moreover, the Gujarati edition hasn’t done so well, so it doesn’t make any sense to continue with the same. However, we will continue with the Gujarati website.”
Urankar’s next statement is more worrying. “The whole advertising market is collapsing due to current market conditions. Even large newspapers are feeling the heat. How will new editions work?”
Btw, along with the news of BS Gujarati shutting shop, e4m also reported the launch of Business Bhaskar’s 12th edition. The Hindi business daily from the Dainik Bhaskar group is already present in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Haryana – markets that the group is strong in. I am going to reserve any further comment on the issue for the next week. Do write in with your views.
Pradyuman Maheshwari is a Mumbai-based editor, trainer and media commentator.
He is consulting editor with Indiantelevison.com.
The views expressed here are his own. Email: pradyumanm@gmail.com