Press Trust of India: New Delhi: Saturday, July 08, 2017.
Conceptualise
the idea; don't question, just seek information; a no doesn't always mean no;
be patient, be persistent - these are some dos and don ts a book prescribes for
journalists on taking the RTI route for their stories.
In
"Journalism through RTI: Information Investigation Impact", senior
journalist Shyamlal Yadav tells how the transparency tool has come in handy for
scribes in getting information that otherwise would have been almost impossible
to unearth despite legal provisions.
Using the
storyline approach, Yadav, through his own experiences, unravels how news was
collected, how the stories evolved, and how the subject was followed up keeping
an eye on the rightful impact.
He, however,
is of the view that though the RTI Act has given the media an opportunity to
unearth the mismanagement of public money and expose the misdeeds of public
servants, in general it has so far not been successful in doing that as
effectively as it should have.
The author
says public authorities have already learnt how to deny information, claiming
exemptions using various circulars of government departments and court orders.
"Moreover,
they quite often give out confusing information, or information worded in such
a way that it cannot be understood," the book, published by Sage, says.
Few other
suggestions by Yadav for journalists to make the best use of RTI are: Try all
public authorities concerned for same information, get familiar with PIOs and
follow up.
He also
writes about how RTI applications revealed details of foreign travels of many
ministers and bureaucrats, corruption cases against top officers and personnel
in personal staff of parliamentarians.
"Foreign
travels of ministers became a talking point in media because of the RTI-based
stories and their follow-up stories. If the RTI Act was not there, it would
have been very difficult, if not impossible, to bring out these facts and
figures from government records," the book says.
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