Saturday, July 17, 2010

Is Indian Media Misusing its Freedom?

This blog is in response to the contest "Is Indian Media – Misusing its Freedom?" organized by "Blogadda" in association with Pringoo.


The Indian media has undergone vast changes in the past two decades since liberalization.  According to some estimates, there are around 400 channels in India today.  With news channels mushrooming every day, each one of these channels try to grab the spotlight using sensationalism.  We have had 'Sting Operations' exposing corruption in defence deals, match fixing in cricket and even on communal riots instigated by the ruling party.  While it is understandable that corruption being such a big issue in our country it may even be the right thing for the media to do but sometimes, they tend to cross that line.  I will try to bring some instances to the light which are a cause of concern.

Tamil Nadu.  The state ruled by two very strong regional parties... DMK and AIADMK..  National parties cannot dream of winning the majority of the parlimentary seats without piggybacking on either of these two parties.  While at the national level, the liberalization of the media leads to immature and irresponsible reporting.. here, media bias has gone to a completely different level.  Each of these parties own their own satellite television and their news channels (Sun TV and Jaya TV respectively) which cover only the news of their leaders.  If they report about the opposition leader it is usually hate rhetoric accusing him/her of everything under the sun.

It gets really interesting when the election results are announced.  The two channels report complete different results with people unable to believe either of them.  Either one of them declare results favorable to them and show results as if they are winning the election and one has to turn on the Hindi or English news channels to get the accurate picture. 

Once, during the last rule of ADMK, the DMK chief was arrested at his residence at mid night which sent shock waves across the nations.  Visuals of M Karunanidhi being dragged and kicked were broadcast within hours on Sun TV.  There were also audio of him screaming "They are killing me.. They are killing me" heard.  At the same time Jaya TV was showing footage denying the dragging and kicking.  Each of them telecast interviews of  forensic experts claiming the other channels footage was doctored.  This kind of biased reporting only makes the common man to shut himself off from the daily happenings around him and he looses interest in politics and democracy.

These channels not only target the opposition party leaders but any individual who is slightly critical of them.  In Sun TV, there is a program that reviews latest tamil movies.  One such review was particularly harsh on a comedy movie starring Sathyaraj.  It claimed that the movie was the worst movie ever made and the actor was  not fit for acting and so on.  On watching the movie, we found that that actor had made fun of the TV program which unduly criticized movies.  His claim was, these channels were extensively using movie content to fill their 24 hour time slots and hence should mellow down their criticism as it affected their profits and a lot of hard work goes into any movie.  Now, seeing all this makes one loose faith that he is living in a free democratic country and resembles more like a police state run by a dictator.

A few years ago, there was a new TV channel which exposed a sex racket run by a Government school teacher in Delhi.  It aired a sting operation and an interview of the alleged victim.  This led to a widespread outrage and protesters damaged vehicles and clashed with police.  They even entered her school and assaulted her even ripping off her clothes.  The teacher was immediately suspended and charges for immoral trafficking were framed.  Later it was found that the victim was actually an aspiring journalist and she had faked the entire sting operation.  It was also found that the teacher was innocent but by that time, the damage was done.  I would rate this incident as the all time low in the history of Indian media. Even for Tamil Nadu standards.

It is said that in a democracy, media is one of the pillars.  The reason is in a democracy, people decide who to rule the country.  For that, they need to be well informed about what is happening in the country and media is the only channel at their disposal.  But it is also a very disturbing fact that this media can be bought by money.   A person/ political party with the right amount of money can mend and bend public perception by controlling the media and become the leader of a country.  This holds good not only to India but everywhere around the world. 

While all these misuse happen in India, I am not totally pessimistic about this issue and I believe since the media is still growing with time and proper regulation this issue can be addressed.  Our media needs to mature a lot but the situation is not that bad after all.  This issue is there even in developed countries like the US.  US, which prides itself in declaring as the 'leader of the free world' has one of the most biased media one has ever seen.  The media businesses are controlled by six major corporations and nothing comes out which they deem not fit to report.  Yes, they have their own versions of Sun TV vs Jaya TV in MSNBC and Fox News.

 Reuters is a company based in UK which is one of the world's biggest media companies.  Its news is respected and accepted to be unbiased worldwide.  This company has a unique rule that no individual is allowed to own more than 15% of the company's shares so that this company's tradition of objective and unbiased reporting is not compromised.  Now, our country has its own share of media companies with good reputation which produce news content of the highest quality.   We just have to encourage them to continue doing the same good work,  Our political leaders should have the vision to frame laws to regulate the media coverage so that it can be a real pillar of our democracy and this will be the solution to strengthen the media in our country.

Winner of Blogadda contest

7 comments:

Someone is Special said...

Very well written.. I am impressed..

I wish you a good luck

Saravana Kumar - Is Indian Media Misusing Its Freedom?

Yours Frendly,
Saravana Kumar M

Guruprasad said...

Thank you Saravana Kumar..

Ugich Konitari said...

Congratulations on being selected at Blogadda ! Great post !

Mee said...

Nice read. I completely agree with your sentiments here. Print media has gone paid, Tv media is owned by Political parties, there is not much going right in the country on every score- sometimes this is a gloomy picture:) But being the optimist that i am I agree with you some stringent laws, some creative thinking shld allow our media to rise above the commercial challenges and deliver to the country that has bestowed so much power in them:)

I wrote on media on one of blogs too- while doing a search I picked up your bog and curiously wandered here:)

Guruprasad said...

Thank you..

Maddy said...

Same is the case with AP. Am getting bored reading this sakshi news paper...completely filled with late.YSR's and Jagan Mohan's so called accomplishments..
Major headlines will be somewhere in the corner of the main edition!

Suganya said...

Congrats Guru !!