August 24, 1998

Direct sources of information spell good news--and bad.

Arun Katiyar

Late last week BBC television did a small report on an Indonesian entrepreneur doing brisk business in chastity belts. The report pointed out that ethnic Chinese minorities in Jakarta were targets of violence, murder, rape and suggested that here was a man selling a product which, according to some Indonesians, couldn't possibly help solve the problems of the country. It seemed to be a balanced report, the work of an experienced journalist who understood the situation in Indonesia and had the ability to put it in the correct perspective.

The same day I got a copy of a bulletin board posting by e-mail. In about a thousand of the most heart-stopping words I have read in recent times, the posting described, in first person, the experience of Vivian, a terrified, confused and helpless 18-year-old girl who discovered that her 14-year-old sister had been raped by five men and killed by the sixth. "The purpose is to request your prayers for hundreds of similar victims," said the e-mail. Quite suddenly, the balanced BBC report became meaningless. When you see some of the raw, disturbing and gruesome photographs of Indonesian rape victims at www.esoterica.pt/lorosae/torture and read the postings on various sites and bulletin boards you will understand how journalism has no option but to change (for annotated links visit http://www.lateline.muzi.net/topics/Indonesian_atrocity/).

The real world gets its attitude and flavour from institutions. The Net acquires it directly from people. There are no filters of commercial constraints, no binding social conventions, no inhibitions. On the Net, free speech is not an idea that needs to be zealously protected; it is a reality which cannot be tampered with. Governments, bureaucrats, politicians and propaganda machines need to understand this; publishing companies and distributors of information need to celebrate this fact even as they ready themselves for a paradigm shift.

However, to the joy of some publishing houses, the biggest question that surfers will face is the reliability of such sites and postings (Vivian could have been fabricating an elaborate lie in the posting). This is where experience, the ability to ferret out information and the need to protect a carefully built reputation come in. But the joy is likely to be short-lived: the Net offers a profusion of choices, it fosters involvement, transparency and disclosure. Best of all, most of this is available free. You really can't complain.

Indian publishers have begun to smell this change. They know those with access to the Net will establish their own sources of news and information. One former editor brazenly compared it to the time some 15 years ago when colour television forced change on print publication. But colour television was mostly about entertainment. The Net is about building revolutions.

Arun Katiyar is executive editor of India Today Group Online. His e-mail address is katiyar@india-today.com

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