No sign of India’s own media culture

While speaking at the Press Institute of India, Chennai, on “Self-regulation by the media”, I expressed the view, published by The Hindu (February 20), that readers of newspapers and television viewers should form an association to interact with and foster better understanding of the media, and to have a two-way communication between the readers/viewers and the media.

What I did not share with the audience was my long-held conviction that media readers and viewers are the most helpless and unorganised lot and, therefore, the weakest and the most exploited section of society. True, there are the superficial trappings for making known their opinion on the running of a newspaper or a TV news channel. Of these, the ‘Letters to the Editor’ column is the oldest existing facility for newspaper readers. This has now been purportedly expanded by the stationing of an Ombudsman who is meant to function as the readers’ bold and independent watchdog.

The public perception is that, in practice, these devices have little impact on the mindsets of proprietors or editors. They can render the readers mute and powerless by hiding behind their age-old prerogative of choosing what to publish and what to throw in the waste paper basket, and mutilating the contents of what may be published.

The Ombudman or the Readers’ Editor too does little to bolster the readers’ confidence. He is invariably a journalist and mostly from within the newspaper establishment, and has been shaped by its ethos, with his own likes and dislikes ingrained in him over the years of his association. He can hardly be expected to have final say in regard to his findings or enforce remedial action.

ABSOLUTIST PRECEPTS

The position is worse in the case of TV news channels. The producers and anchors conduct themselves as if their right to cherry pick the items in their programme, the panelists they assemble, the opinions they plug, the slant they give and the time they allot is beyond question.

Here again, the public perception is that the viewers count for nothing, and all they can do is to lump or leave whatever is put out with no means of subjecting the producers/anchors, or attuning the contents of the programmes, to the overall public or national interest.

The net result is that both the printed and e-media are continuing in the 21st century with the outdated, absolutist precepts of centuries past: Sensationalism still rules the roost. Achievements of importance to society or humanity are either not featured or relegated to where they may not be noticed.

Dog doesn’t eat dog is another injunction that has stubbornly held the ground to this day. The media which demands the unfettered right to comment on politicians and activities of official agencies even to the extent of publishing rumours and personal abuse is tongue-tied when it comes to exposing the misdeeds of private firms, their misuse of funds, the quality of their products and services, and their failure to keep promises.

They do not think twice about lampooning and lambasting persons in public life but are coy about writing about fellow-editors and proprietors whose cupboards have remained a virgin area for investigative journalism.

Does right to information mean only information relating to government, and not information on the wrongdoings of one's own kind?

CAUSE AND MISSION

Or, take a simple thing that causes a lot of resentment: The dictatorial right claimed by editors of print media to accept or reject contributions at will. How I wish every editor was like Desmond Doig of The Statesman in the 1950s who sought the agreement of even obscure, freelance writers to even the minor changes he made to an accepted contribution before publication, and informed those whose contributions were not accepted, of the reasons. This should be taken as a fundamental human right of the contributor.

In sum, running a newspaper or a TV news channel should be regarded as a cause and a mission, and not merely as a commercial proposition.

These were the thoughts behind my suggestion for readers and viewers to organise themselves to help evolve India’s own media culture to suit its present-day needs.

The readers and viewers association would then be able to set up a performance audit-cum-watchdog panel to keep the media under continuing scrutiny.

It will acquire far more teeth and exert far more pressure, than the Press Council, by its presence in most parts of India and by its ability to launch movements and protests.

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