Journalists must do more research, verify facts: Chidambaram

Journalists must do more research and verify information before filing stories, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said today.

"In your anxiety to break news, I think research suffers...Media must pay more attention to research and verification," he said at an event organised by the Kerala Union of Working Journalists here.
He noted that in today's world, journalism is no longer about reporting -- it's about breaking news.

"I think today in this competitive world if you find that a journalist has got a story he or she would want to break it first otherwise somebody else would get that story," Chidambaram said. The minister said curbs on media would not be good even if they were undertaken for a wider public interest. "Putting restrictions on media on some wider interest and not putting restrictions on media -- clearly not putting restrictions on media is public interest in the long run," Chidambaram said.

He acknowledged that reporting is becoming a dangerous profession. "In fact, journalists go in conflict areas. Journalists can find more stories where there is conflict. Journalists working in Middle East countries like Iraq, Iran and Syria face more threat. Then you also have South Asia as one the conflict zones," Chidambaram said.

Syria remained the most deadly place for journalists on the job in 2013, while Iraq and Egypt each saw a spike in fatal violence, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report in December.

At least 70 journalists were killed for their work during the year, it said.