The Hindu Business Line : Media role in consensus building vital: Manmohan

The polity in the country has come to terms with coalition governments and for a country to move forward, any Government has to ensure consensus on many issues across a wide spectrum of political opinion, said the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, here on Wednesday.

While presenting the Ramnath Goenka Awards for Excellence in Journalism, he said, "The national media has an important role to play in the process of consensus building. If media is content with focussing only on disagreements, who will widen the area of agreement?"

On the subject of democracy, he said that it was not built on the principle of the rule of the majority but was built on the idea of unity in diversity. "That was the most important idea that Gandhiji and Panditji gave us — the idea of building a consensus. It is great liberal idea. It rejects extremes and extremism. I believe it is an idea that our media must grapple with, come to terms with and promote in its own way," he said.

Dr Singh recalled his earlier speeches where he had said that the rapid quantitative growth of our media was out pacing qualitative growth and the pressures of competition had hobbled professionalism and encouraged some unhealthy trends. But he said he was happy to see many "turn their torch inward and introspect."

Journalism awards

Meanwhile, Mr Praveen Swami of Frontline and Mr Varghese K. George of The Indian Express jointly won the Journalist of the Year- 2005-2006 award in the print category, while Ms Barkha Dutt of NDTV won the award in the broadcast category.

More Stories on : Awards & Honours | Newspapers & Publishing | Radio/TV

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page