Indian media obssessed with 3 C''s Indian media has fallen. It is near impossible for it to crawl back to the heights of glory it achieved during the pre-independence period and up to the time when stalwarts like Frank Mores, S Sadanand, Chalapathi Rau, and Sham Lal set standards in objectivity, fairness and accuracy for the future generations to follow.
The major cause for this fall is none other than the market-driven Idiot Box 24/7 frivolous
journalism. This kind of journalism is pushing the Indian media away from its original purpose:
service to society. Mahatma Gandhiji, perhaps one of the greatest journalists the world has ever produced, looked upon journalism as a means to serve the people. He wrote in his autobiography: "The sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper is a great power, but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countryside and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many journals of the world would stand the test? But who would stop those that are useless? and who should be the judge? The useful and the useless must, like good and evil. go on together, and man must make his choice."
To quote Prof. V. S. Gupta in his article "Mahatma Gandhi And Mass Media": "Gandhiji was a great communicator. More than any one else, he recognized that
communication is the most effective tool to shape
opinion and mobilize popular support. He was successful because he had a latent skill in communication that surfaced in South Africa where he had gone initially to set up practice as a lawyer. The practice of communication started by him in South Africa gave him the clue to rally millions of his countrymen when he returned to India."
While still on Gandhiji and his opinion on the role of
newspapers, I again quote Prof Gupta: "It will be pertinent to point out as to what Mahatma Gandhi considered to be the role of newspapers. He wrote: In my humble opinion, it is wrong to use a
newspaper as a means of earning a living. There are certain spheres of work which are of such consequence and have such bearing on public welfare that to undertake them for earning one''s livelihood will defeat the primary aim behind them. When, further a newspaper is treated as a means of making profits, the result is likely to be serious malpractices. It is not necessary to prove to those who have some experience of journalism that such malpractices do prevail on a large scale. He was of the opinion, ''Newspapers are meant primarily to
educate the people. They make the latter familiar with contemporary history. This is a work of no mean responsibility. It is a fact, however, that readers cannot always trust newspapers. Often facts are found to be quite the opposite of what has been reported. If newspapers realized that it was their duty to educate the people, they could not but wait to check a report before publishing it. It is true that often they have to work under difficult conditions. They have to sift the true from the false in a short time and can only guess at the truth. Even then, I am of the opinion that it is better not to publish a report at all if it has not been found possible to verify it.''
In contrast to this, what is the state of the media today? Are they serving the society? Are they trying to educate the masses? Are they living up to the ideal standards set by the Father of the Nation?
The other day, I was watching one of those newscasts on one of those silly news channels called CNN IBN. (This doesn''t mean that other channels are any good. They are equally silly and pitiable. ) The news reader was exicitedly tossing her head around and screaming about the wedding date of Bollywood actors Abhishek and Ash! The next day print media not only splashes the couto, but also writes about the who, where, what, why, when and how the marriage is going to take place. Such a colossal waste of bytes, newsprint space and people''s time. Is this service to the society? Is this education?
As Daya Kishan Thussu, the first professor of Indian origin in the field of media and cultural studies in any British university, sometime back told Prasun Sonwalkar of Indo-Asian News Service that despite access to information from a wide variety of sources the media in India tends to go for what he calls the three Cs - celebrities, criminals and cricket.
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