There has been a noticeable change in how much — and how pointedly — the foreign press reports on India. In the past, as the adage had it, a story from the subcontinent wasn’t newsworthy unless it involved the death of one American, or ten Englishmen, or a thousand Indians. This outlook changed when the Cold War ended and economic reforms got underway.
As India became a sizeable market and a prospective ally, the foreign press became much more interested in understanding — and shaping — India’s rise. Unfortunately, as India’s trajectory has not met the expectations of media elites in places such as New York, London, and Doha, much of this swelling coverage has been critical and aimed at very particular targets — apparently our populists and voters, and our billionaires and mandarins are much naughtier than theirs.
The selective fault-finding would be less concerning were it not for a parallel development. In decades past, reports by foreign correspondents were consumed primarily by audiences in their home countries. This effectively limited the damage caused by any one-sided reporting. But with the arrival of the internet, and smartphones in particular, what global media behemoths publish is now instantly available to millions of readers and viewers around the world.
Why should we be troubled by the real or perceived prejudices of the foreign press? There are three considerations to weigh. First, when the foreign press reports or editorialises selectively to promote its values and interests, it infringes on the right of Indians to determine their own future. Second, when the foreign media routinely privileges or bolsters some local interests over others, it interferes in the democratic process. Third, by circulating globally a misleading picture of the country, the foreign press complicates diplomatic and economic relations and thereby hurts national interests.
There is a predictable — and disingenuous — response to the above. A report or editorial in the foreign press, it will be said, is nothing like a military or economic intervention. It only involves the presentation of facts and opinions which readers can evaluate and employ as they see appropriate. Hence, not being an imperial venture, the foreign press deserves to be left free to report as it sees fit.
This response would be plausible — if there were a genuine marketplace of ideas. But how can there be one when respondents in the Global South have no comparable reach? In practice, a correspondent from the New York Times or Al Jazeera can broadcast to the world what they wish and leave the hapless targets of their ire to issue press releases that reach only a fraction of the original audience. To adapt a famous line, after a person has caused a stampede by shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre, who can hear the usher crying out “false alarm”? The answer to the vast asymmetry in the stature and reach of the international press and the modest resources of its local respondents is not to erect a Great Firewall. Speech is valuable for all manner of reasons, and therefore curtailments should be surgical rather than heavy-handed. To wit, a better way to level the playing field would be to pass a law that affords Indians a “right to reply” — that is, an opportunity to push back against damaging claims in the foreign press.
This idea is not new. A “right to reply” can be found in democracies such as France and South Korea, where this legal provision is intended to inculcate a “sense of responsibility” in the news media. There have been international efforts too, such as the now-forgotten 1952 UN Convention on the International Right of Correction, which sought to “improve international understanding” by requiring signatories to have their press agencies provide “commensurate publicity for corrections” should their reports elicit complaints. At the time, the convention failed to attract many signatories because its provisions came in the way of the propaganda wars that the Cold War blocs intended to wage. A platform that allows its propaganda to be rebutted is not very helpful to great powers, is it?
In the absence of international cooperation, there have been experiments at the national and corporate level. There are two that we can learn from. The first is provided by Singapore, where the government expects a foreign outlet that is deemed to have engaged in biased reporting to provide it with the opportunity to reply, failing which the circulation of that publication may be curtailed. This is no empty threat — international outlets such as Time, the Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, have had their sales restricted in Singapore when they declined to provide room for reply.
The other example is provided by the Community Notes procedure introduced at X.com, which allows users to add notes immediately under posts and thereby provide viewers with additional ‘context’. Crowd-sourced fact-checking will always be imperfect: It is slow, erratic, and can be “gamed” by organised groups. Even so, it facilitates debate and thereby helps expose bias from across the political spectrum.
A particularly memorable episode came some months ago when successive Community Notes debunked Peter Navarro’s wild claims about India’s economy, leading the flustered White House official to denounce X.com for permitting “propaganda”.
Drawing on these examples, India’s government should enact a statute with at least three features. First, it should require foreign publications to provide individuals or organisations an opportunity to reply to any report that adversely affects their reputation. Such requests ought to be routed through an impartial commission in order to weed out frivolous complaints. Second, the foreign publication must treat the response submitted by the offended party equitably, affording it the same space and placement as the original offending report. Third, should the publication not comply, the government would then be entitled to revoke the credentials of its correspondents, and in cases where national interests are implicated, to curtail its circulation, subject to judicial scrutiny.
This way of proceeding is preferable to blunter alternatives, such as prosecuting foreign news organisations for giving offence or expelling their correspondents. Neither of those avenues tackles bias. The former encourages sniping from offshore, while the latter allows foreign correspondents to depict themselves as victims of “persecution”, a category they know that journalism prize committees have a particular fondness for. Far better, then, to demand an equal say, because this will reveal whether the viceroys sent out to expose India’s many shortcomings love the truth — or only the sound of their own voices.
