Media Matters: When Owners Become Editors

The following commentary piece is written by Mrithinjai Srikanthan, it was printed in Yamuna 83rd Volume.

Over the last six months, we have come across many reports and incidents involving the media. Be it the WikiLeaks, the CWG scam, the Spectrum scam, or the Radiagate, a role of the media is conspicuous. A real transformation, one would note, has occurred in the overall importance and semblance of the media, and news in particular, especially over the last decade or so. Remember the old days when we had to simply do with Doordarshan on the black-and-white television sets?

Compare it with the ‘responsible’ journalism today. The massive availability of information has brought about a radical shift in our perspective. There is an increasing responsibility on us, the public, to vet what is available to us, ‘to separate the wheat from the chaff,’ so to speak.

Looking back in time, newspapers have always been instrumental in the dissemination of information. Not just this, they are instrumental in shaping public opinion. During the Indian Independence struggle, newspapers like Young India and Amrit Bazaar Patrika played a big hand in the mobilizing people’s sentiments. Given its huge power, traditionally the press has been acknowledged as the Fourth Estate.

Over the years, there has been a marked change in the role of the press, world over. From being passive reporters of goings-on around the globe, they have started playing an active role in unearthing the problems in society. The Watergate scandal marks the emergence of this tendency.

India too has witnessed a rise in investigative journalism and sting operations. While there is a right of the public to know everything, there is this question of what is needed and what is not. Of late, what is being shown by the media has also become questionable. The ownership of these media houses is increasingly becoming complex and shadowy. Owners are becoming editors. This has led to a subtle bias in the coverage of issues, especially those involving these owners. This bias is very much blatant in the regional languages, especially Tamil and Telugu, where strong factions within political parties wield considerable control over both the print and electronic media. Just imagine, on the same day, a channel owned by the ruling party shows people hailing the state government’s anti-poverty program, while another channel shows people lamenting about depravation and the ineffectiveness of the same policy. This kind of coverage drastically affects public opinion. One can argue that the impact is trivial. But in matters like the 2G Spectrum scam, the Radiagate scandal, CWG scam etc, this becomes dangerous. Quite often false reports in the news media have damaged the reputations of innocent people. Reports, hastily gathered in order to be the first to publish a “breaking news” story have, in fact, impeded the process of deliverance of justice. A case in point is the media reports in the Aarushi Talwar murder case.

While typically, in terms of economics, one expects that increasing competition would lead to a rise in efficiency of all the players in the market, in the case of the media, the opposite has occurred. There is a mad rush to grab people’s attention, both in the print and the electronic medium. What used to be reserved for the ‘Page 3’ section has invaded all the other sections of the newspaper (including the sports section!)

But let me clarify, I am not saying that we go back to the age of the ‘Doordarshan News.’ This change in approach is refreshing, but it can’t be at the cost of journalistic ethics and principles. There is a fine line between investigative journalism and the trial-by-the-media. However, we can’t really put the entire blame on these media houses, can we? We too, to some extent, are responsible for this. If something is being supplied, then there must be a demand for it. Surely some people must be interested in knowing what happens in the Big Boss house or even in which room M. S. Dhoni stayed during his wedding. No one is being forced to watch something they don’t relish, are they?

News has become just like any other commodity in the market. Everything that is reported by the media is not sacrosanct. It is up to us, the consumers, to pick and choose what we want. We must know what is relevant for us, distinguish between right and wrong, and, of course, separate the “cherries from the lemons.