Yesterday, when a young television journalist introduced himself to me as working in a particular news channel, I could not help remarking that because of the extra-journalistic activities of one of his seniors the entire news channel was suffering from the ill effects of "Radiation". Naturally, the young man was distraught at the comment but picked up enough courage to say that five fingers of a hand are not equal, and that there were others who were carrying on th best traditions of ethical journalism. He, himself, had worked day and night in hostile atmosphere to bring to light the sordid saga of rotting food grains in many open-to-sky godowns of the Food Corporation of India. Taking a suo moto notice of the situation, as reported in the news story, the Supreme Court gave a lashing to the Central government and ordered it to distribute food grains among the poor and under-nourished rather than letting it rot in ill-equipped storage.
He then made a very significant statement, he said that even if some crucial people in the organisation he was working for were not above board in some of their dealings, the organisation still provided him a platform from which he could make a real contribution to society by exposing inefficiency and corruption in the way the government functioned. Without that platform he would just be an aware, perhaps even enlightened, citizen who would be pained at the worsening situation all around but unable to do anything to improve it.
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