No matter how idealistic it sounds, no democratic society can rule out the concept that media freedom is instrumental to ensuring a healthy democracy in the modern world. Nepal is no exception to this fact. That transparency, accountability and the rule of law, the vital principles of democracy, require media freedom cannot be sidelined as a stereotyped slogan. The utilization of media freedom involves the task of supplying accurate and unbiased information to people, who need to select right leadership for public positions.
The notion of media freedom, in a broader sense, concerns mainly journalistic freedom as well as the freedom that public media outlets exercise for higher purposes of democracy and people's progress. Ideally, we expect the utilization of media freedom to contribute to the evolution of an effective, transparent and accountable government in Nepal. While the mere trumpeting of media freedom does not ensure a better quality of journalism potentially capable of revolutionizing the dull mindset into a critical and analytical one, journalists require an appropriate atmosphere for carrying out their public responsibilities in an independent and dignified manner. For this, high quality responsible journalism must be the widely held principle, with no space for trivial plays under the disguise of journalism.
Nepali political stakeholders have almost confined themselves to majority game, jeopardizing the very spirit of democracy itself. Democracy, in a genuine sense, means more than just the majority rule. It is a tool for change at grassroots levels. Democratic leaderships must come up with transformative policies as well as a keen mindset to implement them. Democracy is a soil for the cultivation of a healthy society to be founded on social justice and social harmony. In this respect, our journalistic practices deserve insight-building and growth opportunities. We need to wholeheartedly internalize media freedom not with a partisan mindset but with a catalyzing positive intention in the process of nurturing democratic culture capable of intrinsically combating corruption culture. It is extremely important to utilize media freedom as a crucial element for good governance. This is a process fraught with tough challenges, especially for journalists as self-conscientious individuals who are willing to practice pro-public journalism despite their having to get through severe economic constraints.
Bargaining and lingering attitudes at political levels and the multiplication of structurally organized corruption have decelerated Nepalis' progress, with the level of mass frustration going up. Within historical political parties, intra-party revolution has to happen in ideological and cultural terms. The reason is clear: the Nepalis have the right to see their political parties equipped with a scientific leadership that can de-addict party politics from individual-centrism, chief-orientedness and leaders' subconscious lustfulness given to corruption. The Fourth Estate faces a grand challenge of maximizing the utilization of media freedom toward promoting ideologically guided policy-oriented and merit-oriented party politics in Nepal.
Quality journalism entails understanding the contemporary issues in-depth. For instance, more youths have been forced to swarm to Gulf countries for bread after 2006 because the dominant political forces have failed to prove their worth in implementing the transformative principles accepted in the Comprehensive Peace Accord signed between the then Maoist rebels and the Seven-Party Alliance. Likewise, market prices have skyrocketed anarchically, with no moral courage and political willpower seen in addressing them for regulating daily public life in a just and democratic manner. Never was such a devastating moral downfall of Nepal's dominant political parties seen before. Due to the ever continuing moral degradation of political leaderships, people have begun to lose trust in them. In this situation, practicing journalism with independence and self-conscience involves a tough challenge amidst the emergence of new political forces, ideologically and epistemologically unidentified yet. Nevertheless, seeking political insight through media freedom could be a positive method for improvement.
The Nepali Fourth Estate was subject to heavy censorship and attacks in the past. However, there have been recent improvements in media freedom, following the adoption of a new constitution that enshrines freedom of expression and media freedom values in the Preamble itself. The Freedom House yearly report 2023 has scored Nepal's media freedom status as 58/100. It has been rated as partly free in terms of media freedom. In the light of this report as well as from our general observations, it is obvious that financially fragile journalism is subject to uncalculated self-censorship and demoralization from other possible manipulative forces.
However, there needs to be a constant practice of a free and responsible press for the democracy to thrive in a real sense. Despite some visible deviations even in the journalistic domain affected by the all-pervasive corruption and other conditions of ill-governance in the country, well-principled journalists should not lose their heart and self-conscience. Combating the rising fake journalism and yellow journalism in various disguised forms is a serious challenge not to be ignored by morally bold and well-principled journalists.
Low media literacy among Nepalis can have a negative impact on media freedom in the country. More gullible masses, unable to critically differentiate between truthful and fake information, are likely to be added vehicles to spread false propaganda. This will result in the loss of media credibility in general. In the same way, those in power have an opportunity to suppress analytical and critical reporting while manipulating information.
Moreover, audiences with little media literacy cannot even complain to media outlets for failing to report adequately and meaningfully on vital issues such as the prolonged severe scarcity of drinking water in the Kathmandu valley and the deaths of thousands under the age of 50 due to widespread alcoholism across Nepal. Therefore, stakeholders should be serious enough to take steps for promoting media literacy and critical thinking skills to better equip Nepalis to evaluate and engage with the news media and hold public stakeholders accountable.
Concerning the productive utilization of media freedom, conditions for pure journalistic practices must be desired and sought in order to practically demonstrate the genuine commitment to the recognition of the value of the Fourth Estate in the democratic system. Following the end of 10-year armed insurgency in 2006, Nepalis did expect qualitative changes in their lives through a transformed political leadership. But it has been more than apparent that the Nepalis will still need to work hard to acquire a transformed political leadership. With the same conventional and individual-centric political leadership in active positions, no qualitative changes have occurred. Utilizing media freedom, the Fourth Estate needs to dynamize the Nepali minds toward constructing a social psychology of good governance and qualitative transformation. It has now been essential for the Nepali Fourth Estate to combat post-truth effects (corporate influences included) mainly visible in social media networks on the one hand and to sustain a principled media stance in favor of public wellbeing on the other. A more verifying, critical and analytical media approach is the need of the day toward utilizing media freedom for building a healthy democracy in Nepal.
