AsiaCalling

Download India’s Press Council, a media watchdog, says many electronic and print media outlets in the country are behaving highly irresponsibly and has called for stricter regulations.

The media outlets are up in arms against the move calling it an assault on press freedom.

Although many journalists acknowledge that the accusations are often true they are opposed to any external interference.

Bismillah Geelani reports from New Delhi.

At a recent meeting with journalists in New Delhi, the Chairman of the Press Council of India Markandey Katju lashes out at the local media.

“The media very often divides the people. For example whenever a bomb blast takes place in Bombay, Delhi or Bangalore, within a few hours, almost every channel starts showing that an email has come or SMS has come that Indian Mujahideen have claimed responsibility,or Jaish Mohammad or Harkatul Jihad, some Muslim name. Any mischievous person can send an email or SMS but by showing it on TV and next day in print, you are in a subtle way conveying the message that all Muslims are terrorists and bomb throwers.”

He had a long list of charges including that the media focuses more on entertainment than people’s real issues.

“Eighty percent people are living in horrible poverty, unemployment, facing price rise and health care issues but you divert attention from those problems which are basically economic and instead you project film stars, fashion parades and cricket as if they are the problems of the people.”

He also accuses the media of indulging in corruption and promoting superstition.

And to address this he wants more restrictions on the media.

He has asked the government to empower the press council to cancel licenses, impose penalties and stop government advertisements to media outlets found guilty of misconduct.

“There must be some fear in the media. Everybody is accountable in a democracy. No freedom is absolute; every freedom is subjected to reasonable restrictions.”

NK Singh is President of the Broadcast Editor’s Association. He says the demands are unfair

“The commercial broadcasting Industry in India is just 16 years old. But in Europe it has been around for 50 years and it makes lots of mistakes but it is never denigrated like this. It is totally unacceptable to call the Indian media anti- people.”

Satish Kumar, editor of the Hindi Television Channel Zee News sees the demand as a conspiracy to control the media.

“The News media has just woken up but they want to send it back to its slumber. There is a hidden agenda behind all this. It is a provocation and an attempt to muzzle the media with power and they want to do it so that the fourth pillar of democracy which is still intact also collapses."

But the press council chairman’s criticism has struck a chord with many.

Writer and Columnist Tawleen Singh says the quality of the news media is poor.

“A lot of television news at the moment is just what Twitter would do. It’s the “Twittterization”of   television and that’s very true and most of these journalists don’t even seem to have understood that in another country they would probably be sued for doing some of the stories they do where they assume that somebody is guilty."

Sunita Raj Kohli , former President of the Star News says it is because  most reporters  lack proper training.

“The news industry has suddenly given birth to thousands and thousands of jobs for people who are journalists or young professionals who have come into the media business. Nobody has had the time to sit down and mature. Everybody suddenly got employed because suddenly so many channels came up and there was a great demand for journalists. So we don’t know where our voices and our writers are coming from.”

The media industry in India is the largest in the world with nearly 350 Television channels and more than 50, 000 registered newspapers.

India also has the world’s largest Radio Network but it is fully controlled by the government.

Private radio channels which are nearly 300 are not allowed to air news and current affairs programs.  

Newspapers and television are mostly dominated by domestic and Multi-national Corporations.

P. Sainath, editor of Rural Affairs at the daily newspaper the Hindu says they are more interested in making profits than serving public purpose.

“In a country which has the largest number of poor people on the planet, newspapers and channels do not think it is important to treat poverty as a beat. If you are not talking to 70 percent of your population how you can reflect what you are asking them to reflect.  You don’t have a beat called labor; you don’t have a beat called rural. 70 percent of your population does not make news. You cover it when 200 people die of plague or something then they will become news. There is no other way for them but to die in sufficient numbers to make news.”

But the journalists are opposing the idea of government regulation for media.

Even those who fully agree with the Press Council Chairman don’t see any room for government interference in the functioning of media.

Shahid Siddiquee is the editor of Urdu news daily “Nayee Duniya”.

“Mr. Katju has diagnosed the disease correctly. But the cure he’s suggesting is worse than the disease. It is a poison not only for the media but for democracy as well. And if they try to do it by force the entire media will stand against it and the people as well as the political parties would also support us.”

There‘s however a strong internal pressure on media outlets to ensure that the process of  news gathering and presentation does not violate the basic journalistic ethics, like objectivity, impartiality, accuracy and fairness.

Sudhendra Kulkarni is a senior journalist.

“The media holds a mirror to the rest of society. It shows what is wrong with politics and what is wrong with governance. The time has come for the media to hold a mirror to itself.