Citizen vs journalist

Iu00a0do not vote. It is only once that I have broken the rule, but more on that later. I am passionate about politics and government, but the reason I do not vote is that I take my calling as a newsman seriously, and for a journalist it is absolutely vital that he guard against bias.

Not exercising my right to vote is a conscious decision taken years ago to keep even the slightest of political biases from creeping in and colouring the news pages. Voting for someone, by definition, means a loss of neutrality.

Let me confess that every time an election comes round and the journalist in me prevents the citizen in me from exercising his franchise, an inner struggle takes over. My mind questions the decision I made when I started off as a journalist nearly 10 years ago.

The citizen fights tooth and nail, forever sharpening his arguments. Sometimes the citizen accuses the journalist of harbouring false pride, sometimes of not being grown-up enough to keep two aspects of life firmly anchored in their separate places.

I came of age in 1995 and should have first voted in the 1996 general election, but my name was not on the electoral rolls ufffd a common experience for many people who just enter adulthood.

Then, before the many subsequent elections in the politically unstable latter half of the 90s, the people who come to update the rolls did take my name down. But I was still unable to vote in any of those elections, general or state. Every time, either my name was missing from the list or somebody had already voted in my place.

On January 1, 2001, I got my first journalism job. Within a few months I had formulated the rules I would live by to preserve my integrity as a member of the Fourth Estate.

Yes, I will vote in housing society elections, in the Press Club elections, even the local beauty contest, but not political elections.

Now for the one time I did vote. Yes, I was very much a journalist when I did that. The citizen in me had defeated the journalist after a long struggle. In the larger interests of society and democracy, the journalist bowed to the citizen's sense of duty.

Rather than a vote for somebody, it was more of a vote against a very powerful person I believed, and still believe, was not fit to be sent to Parliament.