The Hindu Business Line : E-media versus p-media

Many among us have come to depend for the news of the day wholly on electronic media. They turn over the pages of newspapers only cursorily, if at all, just glancing at the headlines and the blurbs. They studiously avoid Government-run TV channels and are glued to private ones. The purveying of news by private channels is without doubt more professional and hard-hitting than in the case of the staid and guarded government channels.

Because of the need for them to conform to cumbersome recruitment procedures and modest salary ranges, government channels are unable to attract the best talents. They also impose too many checks such as keeping clear of politically controversial subjects and refraining from playing up the Opposition. These act as a damper on the creative faculties of their personnel

By contrast, the anchors, editors and reporters of private news channels are among the best in the field, enjoying attractive compensation packages. Some of them have become personal brands in their own right. Features such as Face the Nation, Devil’s Advocate, the Big Fight, We, the People, Election Analysis and the like have come to have a hypnotic hold over viewers. The cold print of the p-media can be no match to the no-holds-barred, free-for-all, gladiatorial confrontations of the e-media.

The game of one-upmanship among the private channels certainly enhances the scope and quality of the coverage and makes for high production values.

In their competition for viewership, they come up with scoops and exposes which enlarge the contours of public discourse and instil the much needed accountability and transparency in public life.

By its very nature, e-media enjoys a number of advantages. News breaking in real time and right before the eyes of the viewers have an instant and direct impact. There is no interposition between news makers and news breakers, and viewers get reactions and commentaries from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

Not only does this make the news authentic and reliable, reducing the scope for editorial bias, but it also leaves it to the viewers to come to their own conclusions.

Depth to debates

Compared to the p-media, there is more daring in the expression of opinions in the e-media, and less proneness for selective blanking out. For instance, while e-media channels repeatedly showed the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr Budhdhadeb Bhattacharya, make, in the course a media grilling, the breath-taking statement about the CPI(M) cadres paying back the Trinamool Congress supporters in their own coin at Nandigram, some sections of the p-media side-stepped it.

E-media contributes to a greater understanding of the implications of events and issues by providing an opportunity for listening to persons on the opposite sides of the fence thrashing out their cases face to face. What is fascinating in such spirited exchanges is not just the substance but the manner, style and body language that add depth to the debates.

The role of the e-media as a cleansing agent has been nothing short of spectacular. Its sting operations and turning the spotlight on brutalities by officials roused public indignation in a way that would not have been possible for p-media.

It is the e-media which turned out to be the nemesis for the political big shots falling for bribes and MPs extorting cash for questions.

Similarly, repeated showing of visuals of the police official at Bhagalpur dragging a suspected thief tied to his motor cycle or the moral police of Meerut mercilessly beating up amorous couples resulted in the culprits being deservedly brought to book.

If only the full armoury of the e-media had been in place at the time of the Emergency of 1975-77 or the anti-Sikh riots of 1984...!

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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