What are Facts mean?
Facts in journalism is a different meaning than
The facts in day today’s life
How?
I will give you a few examples
1- most people don’t like congress
But some do like them
2- some people like Indira Feroze Khan-Gandhi despite operations Blue Star’s error some thought it was the right decision and most thought it was wrong.
3-some people like Morarji Desai
But what he did to 50,000 Sindhi families (including my family) in 1947-48 was absolutely evil but some like him and some don’t like him.
4-some people like Rajeev Feroz Khan-Gandhi
But what he did to 50,000 Sikhs in 1984 was absolutely evil
5-some people like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi but 1 million people have died and more than 250000 women got rapped because of Mohandas’s wrong decision
6-some people like Nathuram Godse for ending Mohandas’s life so that he wouldn’t make more damages to our nation
But some people consider him as a villain
What Mohandas did was wrong but Nehru was happy therefore Nehru made MK Gandhi as a national hero and made Nathuram as a national villain, but both Mohandas’s action and Nathuram’s actions were Wrong
But today one is a hero and another one is a villain
Despite knowing the FACTS some people still consider Indira Feroze Khan, Morarji Desai, Rajeev Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Nathuram Godse as their hero
Now let’s talk about the meaning of FACTS in journalism?
The answer is: present your story as real as possible, however, journalist must show both pros and cons angles with proof/ numbers/past history/how it was started/where it got to end/damages/social effects/religion effects/cultural effects/public effects/environmental effects and more.
As a journalist, you have the right to present a TRUE story
But journalists don’t have the right to decide if he/she is a hero or villain
It is the readers who decide.
What Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Raveesh Kumar, Shekhar Gupta, and many others try to portrait someone as a Hero or someone as a villain based on who pays them!
These are against the ethics of journalism
Moral of the story is:
Despite of having FACTS on table
it is people’s choice to consider someone as a Hero or villain
your Hero could be my villain, and my hero could be your villain