R Jagannathan
Politicians are fond of saying that they are the products of societal values. So if they are crooked, it’s because the people don’t mind this and elect them for their own reasons. A similar argument can be made for the media, who are not ‘doodh ke dhule huey” people. While one cannot generalise and say all media people are crooked, the problem is half the media is owned by politicians, or businessmen who are aligned to politicians. This means the journalists in such media houses will reflect the values of their owners and bosses. Or else they could lose their jobs. The low prices charged for newspapers and TV channels makes the media over-dependent on advertising revenues to be viable – which again means that some media houses will adopt unethical means to obtain advertising. This is why large sections of the media can be tainted. Even media houses with good journalists may thus give greater prominence to the crooked ones among them in order to curry favour with advertisers. The perception that media is as crooked as politicians is thus difficult to live down.read less read more
Akshaya Mishra
Before complaining about the declining moral and ethical standards among the media professionals, particularly those involved with news media, let’s be clear about one uncomfortable reality: they come from the same stock as Indians in all other professions and politicians. It’s only normal that there will be a mix of people – good, bad and ugly – here. In general, the Indian media have been competent at taking on the high and powerful when it involves big ticket corruption and abuse of power. The Emergency and the Bofors cases prove that. In recent times, the media have been taking the lead in exposing massive cases of corruption, daring the high and the mighty. Their follow-up work in the 2G spectrum allocation case, the Commonwealth Games scandal, Coalgate and the cases involving Robert Vadra and Nitin Gadkari have been exceptional. In general, the media have become more aggressive and there’s more focus on investigation. It’s welcome trend. But this is not to condone the bad apples in the profession. They are as compromised as politicians and people in other professions. They should be treated the same way as any other wrong-doers. But let’s not trash the entire media because of a few people.read less read more
