Is The Last DJ Still Out There?

Recall that in an earlier post I had examined Shekhar Gupta’s opinion that the political party organization must be the paramount concept, and that “partyless wonders” will lead to “anarchy”; well, here we have him again, this time asserting that there cannot be anything like a Citizen Journalist.

Every journalist must be in the “profession.”

He said this at his convocation address to graduates of a prestigious school of journalism in Bangalore.

He said:

“Show me a citizen lawyer or a citizen doctor and I’ll show you citizen journalists,” he said, adding that journalism was a profession like any of the other two.

The word “profession” must be differentiated from the word “vocation.” Lawyers and doctors are “self-regulating professions” in the precise sense that they are allowed to practise under a “system” which they alone have set – like MBBS or LlB.

Yet, I do believe there are Citizen Doctors. There is Dr. Anil Patel, for example, medicine man, political activist, and deep scholar of Austrian economics and its epistemological tradition, who heads the NGO Arch-Vahini based out of Gujarat, and is an old friend. Anilbhai is “out of the system”: he cannot be called a “professional.” He is pursuing his “vocation.”

Of course, there are many Citizen Lawyers too, like the lawyer I came across who worked pro bono for a local unit of the People’s Union For Civil Liberties in a small town I was passing through. There are many such lawyers who practise while conducting their own brand of civic activism. Indeed, this is why many politicians are lawyers.

But let us contrast Journalism with medicine and the law. There is no “degree” we require from a Professional Journalists’ Academy or, even worse, from The State, in order to enter the field of journalism, unlike the MBBS or LlB.

Thus, journalism is NOT a “profession” at all; it is a “vocation,” which in turn implies that it leaves a lot of open areas open for individualism, for doing your own thing, for fighting your own causes, for whatever. As a journalist, you can be “The Last DJ” – and, indeed, you must (hear the song:=)). It is the anthem of this blog.

Shekhar Gupta hogs the media with a huge presence in both print as well as television. He also received the Padma Shri award from our The State – and accepted it. He has serious views on the legitimacy of “political organizations” in India. He seems to think that journalism is also “organized,” or should be. In either case, he dismisses The Last DJ. He scoffs at the idea of a Citizen Journalist.

The new politics I am talking about is all about such Citizen Journalists – who spread the virus of Liberty Under Law, acting only with their own knowledge, convictions and limitations, answerable to no one but the public, who surely know how to separate the grain from the chaff. They could be in newspapers, magazines, tv, radio, blogs, twitter, whatever. May their vocation never become a profession. May Knowledge Always Be Free.

Of course, this is why doctors and lawyers are treated as a special category in modern political science – for doctors have an interest in lowering the supply of doctors, or permit the lowering of professional standards to allow paramedics to practise among the poor, while lawyers have an interest in increased litigation. And doctors teach doctors, lawyers teach lawyers. How can Journalism ever be compared to these professions?

Anyway, the more we peek into the mind of the “professional journalist,” the scarier it gets.

Scary, dudes.

But I leave you with a sense of optimism: the opening lines of "The Last DJ" by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. It goes:

You can't turn him into a company man,
You can't turn him into a whore,
And the boys upstairs just don't understand anymore.
And the top brass don't like him talking so much,
And he won't play what they say to play,
And he don't wanna change, what don't need to change.

There goes the Last DJ,
Who says what he wants to say,
Who plays what he wants to play,
hey hey hey
There goes your freedom of choice,
There goes the last human voice,
There goes the Last DJ.