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Polity & Governance
Mahesh

19/01/24 10:30 AM IST

Indian Media: Quo Vadis

In News
  • Media now is driven by the “breaking news” culture and the search for the villain of the day: the news must be broken and so, it seems, must the person.
Social Media
  • Social media, with its culture of unverified “fact” and viral opinion, compounds the problem: it offers a ready platform for material that would not have passed editorial scrutiny.
  • Sadly, matters are not much better in the print media, despite its ability to provide context, depth, and analysis that television cannot.
  • However, print media has also been affected; journalists trying to keep up with the relentless 24x7 breaking news cycle, and the rise of social media, now feel pressed to publish without the traditional recourse to fact-checking.
  • Government needs a free and professional media to keep it honest and efficient, to serve as both mirror (to society) and scalpel (to probe wrongdoing).
  • If instead all we have is a blunt axe, society is not well served. The free press is both the mortar that binds together the bricks of our country’s freedom, and the open window embedded in those bricks.
Measures for free press
  • First, we must engender a culture of fact-verification and accuracy that the industry currently appears to lack.
  • Journalists should not feel pressed by their employers to “break the news”, but empowered to hold stories until they are sure their facts and accusations are accurate. The rush to judgment on the basis of partial information must stop.
  • Second, we must insist on better journalistic training at accredited media institutes that emphasise values of accuracy, integrity and fairness in their students. These standards should extend to media organisations: when false claims or intentionally misleading statements are published or broadcast, TV and print news outlets should issue retractions with equal prominence.
  • Third, we must welcome different perspectives in our newsrooms and not allow them to become echo chambers forcing an opinion onto their viewers in the guise of “the nation wants to know”. Newsrooms must be required to maintain a more diverse journalistic environment. Every story plugging a point of view must be required to provide some space for the alternative view, or for a refutation.
  • Fourth, journalists must welcome comments and feedback from their viewers and readers, to generate both an environment of trust between the consumers and the media, and the feeling on the part of the public that they are not merely passive recipients of a point of view. 
  • The Hindu is one of the newspapers to have had a Readers’ Editor who serves as an Ombudsman for the newspaper and acknowledges mistakes of fact or emphasis in the newspaper’s coverage. This helps drive a natural cycle of loyalty and engagement between the paper and its readers.
  • Fifth, the government must introduce laws and regulations that limit control of multiple news organisations by a single business or political entity, thereby encouraging an independent and robust press in the country.
  • A powerful business interest, vulnerable to government pressure, will usually override ethical journalistic concerns. India is one of the few major countries where no restrictions currently exist when it comes to media ownership by its affluent citizens.
Way forward
  • India’s population is becoming more literate by the day, resulting in an ever-growing mass of media consumers.
  • But they deserve a media that contributes to shaping an informed, educated and politically aware India, one ready to hold its governments accountable, its society safe and its people ready to push boundaries.
  • If India wishes to be taken seriously by the rest of the world as a responsible global player and a model 21st-century democracy, we will have to take ourselves seriously and responsibly as well. Our media would be a good place to start.
Source- The Hindu

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