As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m a journalist always
looking for a good journalism movie. Films overwhelmingly have the tendency to
portray journalists either crusaders or scumbags; neither is often very
accurate. When I mentioned my quest for a solid Bollywood journalism movie,
several people recommended
No One Killed
Jessica to me.
I put it off and put it off, but recently I finally did sit
down and watch the film.
The facts are this: It’s a good film. It’s not a good
journalism film.
In case you don’t know, No One Killed Jessica is based on
the real-life murder of Jessica Lall: A minister’s fatally son shoots Jessica
in a club because she won’t give him a drink. But when the police investigate,
the minister’s goons buy off and intimidate everyone away from testifying.
Jessica’s sister, Sabrina (
Vidya Balan), leads the uphill fight for justice.
The court eventually finds the man not guilty and lets him free. But journalist
Meera Gaity (
Rani Mukherjee), a former war correspondent, refuses to let it go
and publicizes the story, eventually helping to work up outrage that reopens
the case and results in a guilty verdict.
Why is this a good film? Because it’s a moving story of the
tragedy of the murder, a sister’s refusal to give up seeking justice, the
painful reality of corrupt Indian politics and legal system, a nation’s outcry
over the injustice of it all. And of course there are great performances from Rani and Vidya.
Why is it not a good journalism film? There’s little or —
dare I say — no actual journalism in
the film about the murders.
No one journalist investigates the murders. All of the
damning evidence that later stirs up public fury is effectively dropped in
Meera’s lap. She merely goes on television to present it — that’s not
journalism. The most any of the other journalists do is insist — and fail in
their insistence — that this is a
story. Yes, that’s a part of journalism. But to think that journalism ends
there — in deciding what is a worthwhile story — is a great, great failure.
 |
Having the guts to talk about a story is important.
But looking pretty for a camera to present evidence
you didn't work for isn't journalism. |
Another great problem in treating this film as a picture of
journalism comes in the fact that this film definitely steps outside what we
consider journalism’s role and bounds. In the United
States, potential jurors are screened for
their knowledge of a case based on media coverage and then later ordered to
avoid media coverage of the case, lest they be influenced or biased by the
media’s coverage or encounter evidence that isn’t presented in trial.
The reason? There is a significant danger in conducting
trials in the court of public opinion rather than a court of law. Certainly
with a corrupt law enforcement system, it’s tempting, but it’s also dangerous.
Ask anyone who has been wrongfully accused or, worse, convicted due to media
coverage.
And the film entirely ignores this problem. The murderer is
tried and convicted in the mind of Meera — and then the minds of the people who
watch her news shows — before the evidence truly comes out. That is not
justice.
In the film, this, despite being highly problematic, is
allowed to work because the man is guilty. It works because we know from the
case in real life that the man was guilty.
But in pure journalism terms, I have a significant problem
with it.
It is not a journalist’s job to put a man on trial, to prove
that he is guilty or innocent. It is a journalist’s job to present the public
with the unvarnished facts.
Yes, outrage often spawns reform. But it isn’t a
journalist’s job to spawn outrage, either. It’s a person’s right, the public’s
right, to decide whether something is outrage-worthy. Using the media to start
things like that is a very slippery slope.
I had high expectations, especially after Vidya Balan herself talked it up to me in May and Dia Mirza was buzzing about it in front of me in April, and it’s obvious that Bobby Jasoos is high on many
production values, most notably characters and their development.
