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| Tuesday, 15 June 2004 |
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On passing through a tunnel
She had unhesitantly declared that 'Newspaper people are tight rope walkers. There is always a fine line to tread and we shouldn't shrink from walking it'. In order to clarify the issue further, she had made use of a certain oriental parable. But as a prologue to the parable, she said. 'I am convinced that more compassion, restraint, and judgement are needed in our business and that if the line is properly walked, this should in no way impair the fullest, most hard hitting account of significant news and information'. Now we come on to the parable. The student of an oriental mystic is in the final stages of his instruction when his guru submits him to a test of his understanding. He is told that he must find his way through a long dark tunnel with only a miner's lamp to light his way. The guru explains that he will see many sights, some ghostly, some threatening, some lovely, but that he mustn't believe any of them for they are all illusions produced by hypnosis. The student starts down the tunnel. He passes a gorgeous mermaid basking in a pool, but he never pauses. He encounters a hideous dragon berating fire and continues on his way. He is chased by lions and surrounded by serpents, but he is never perturbed. Then he comes to a stout still a death end. He has come to a stone wall. There is no way to go forward. He turns back only to find another wall. There is no way out, he is walled in. Then he remembers his guru's final words. 'Dont' believe anything you see'. And he walks through the wall out into the light. Having narrated this parable Fanning, presents her conclusions in the following words. 'I am not suggesting we go around walking into walls. But I do think we can examine whether we are creating our own walls as journalists and whether as a society we are walling ourselves into untenable positions. So we have a lesson to learn. Isn't it up to journalists to open their eyes, look at things in a new way, find out if the walls are real? When I recalled this parable presumably narrated in 1980s I felt that it could be compared with the Jataka titled 'Telapatta Jataka', where a certain teacher tests the integrity of his students by allowing them to take a spoonful of oil, without shaking it. When the student does it, there will be incessant disturbances created around. But the student who has a shaky mind and a shivering hand will spill the oil, gets defeated, whereas the student who is clear minded steady and undisturbed will take the oil spoon wherever he goes and wins the test. How many of us can be winners in these tests? |
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Katherine W. Fanning, one time editor of Christian Science Monitor, was
once asked to describe her responsibilities in journalism.
