Firstpost
  • Home
  • Video Shows
    Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports
  • World
    US News
  • Explainers
  • News
    India Opinion Cricket Tech Entertainment Sports Health Photostories
  • Asia Cup 2025
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit
Trending:
  • Nepal protests
  • Nepal Protests Live
  • Vice-presidential elections
  • iPhone 17
  • IND vs PAK cricket
  • Israel-Hamas war
fp-logo
Why smirk at Murdoch when our media has much to hide?
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter
Apple Incorporated Modi ji Justin Trudeau Trending

Sections

  • Home
  • Live TV
  • Videos
  • Shows
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Health
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Business
  • Impact Shorts

Shows

  • Vantage
  • Firstpost America
  • Firstpost Africa
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Flashback
  • Live TV

Events

  • Raisina Dialogue
  • Independence Day
  • Champions Trophy
  • Delhi Elections 2025
  • Budget 2025
  • US Elections 2024
  • Firstpost Defence Summit
  • Home
  • Politics
  • Why smirk at Murdoch when our media has much to hide?

Why smirk at Murdoch when our media has much to hide?

R Jagannathan • July 20, 2011, 23:03:20 IST
Whatsapp Facebook Twitter

The Murdoch affair should force Indian media to re-examine their own ethics issues. We haven’t seen serious soul-searching for a while, and this is as good a time as any.

Advertisement
Subscribe Join Us
Add as a preferred source on Google
On
Google
Prefer
Firstpost
Why smirk at Murdoch when our media has much to hide?

Few people love Rupert Murdoch, boss of News Corp. Old-time journalists dislike him for throwing the old rules on how to run newspapers into the dustbin. Politicians and celebs detest him for what his tabloids do to their reputations. The Brits hate him for being an Aussie who took over their newspapers but still stayed out of reach by becoming an American citizen. Above all, he was heartily envied even by the power elite because he was seen as too powerful even by their standards. He ranked 13th in the Forbes list of the world’s most powerful people. Put another way, only 12 people in the world had no reason to envy his power. This is why the proceedings of British parliamentary committee to probe the News of The World (NOTW) hacking scandal had everyone salivating at the prospect of tearing into him. In the event, the grilling failed to give anyone much pleasure, for Murdoch stuck to his guns and stoutly denied any knowledge of the illegalities happening at NOTW. The MPs had to be content with an apology, and promises of compensating the victims of the hacking done by NOTW journos. Unless someone high up in the NOTW hierarchy rats on Murdoch, he is safe. The only bit of excitement came when a comic protestor smeared Murdoch with shave foam, and Murdoch’s Chinese spouse clouted him on the head with much gusto. The Indian media watched the fun on their TV screens, but missed the irony that the joke was really on them. If any media fraternity needs to be sorry and self-introspective, it is India’s. I heard few mea culpas during a Times Now debate on the subject on Tuesday, where everything from paid-news to sting operations was mentioned but glossed over. What is clear is that the Indian media – despite some obvious strengths and pockets of ethical behaviour - has become complacent and superficial. It can also be easily manipulated by vested interests. The paradox is this: the media still breaks the big stories, but most of it is the result not of hard investigation, but political leaks generated to damage others. This is fine, upto a point, for media should go for a story and not worry too much about the motivations behind the leaks. But here’s the problem: it never gets to the root of anything. The 2G scam was visible in early 2008 to all telecom reporters. But they did little. The Radia tapes suddenly found mention in parliament early last year, but nobody followed it up. It took the CAG report in the second half of 2010 to really give it traction. In short, the media did almost nothing to unearth the scam; an arm of parliament did the real work for it. Worse, the media never tried to figure out who could have wanted to trap Niira Radia. It fell silent when another leak – this time targeting some media personalities themselves – was unleashed as a warning signal from the political establishment. The media clearly has too much to hide to really go after the crooked and the corrupt. This is also obvious from the ease with which the media first lionised, and then quickly turned against, Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption crusaders. Granted, Anna has a few bizarre demands, but would we rather believe him or government spokespersons? The fundamental reason for this media failure is simple: large parts of it are simply unviable. Normally, this should see the weaker players being sold or merged, but they are still run because they serve collateral, often political, purposes. Almost every regional media group is politically aligned, and this makes media the key focus of political investment. [caption id=“attachment_44609” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Few people love Rupert Murdoch, boss of News Corp. Reuters”] ![](https://images.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/murdoch_kevin2.jpg "murdoch_kevin") [/caption] When Jaganmohan Reddy, YSR’s son, wanted to launch Sakshi, he could shake several hundred crores out of many businessmen with ease. If media is fundamentally unviable, why would businessmen give money unless they are armtwisted or given special favours by politicians in power? Quite obviously, there is a quid pro quo, and journalism is hostage to this incestuous relationship between politicians and vested interests, not to speak of criminals. Many people blame the internet, which gives everything for free, for the print media’s predicament, but this is not quite true. The fact is even newspapers are effectively free. Consider the economics: A newspaper priced at Rs 2-3 a copy actually costs Rs 12-14 just for the printing and the paper. Since most of the cover price is handed out to hawkers, the reader is essentially paying the hawker for home delivery. It is the advertiser who pays for all the content. Is it any surprise the most of the content is tailored for corporate needs? The situation is not any better with TV channels. Most news channels are free-to-air, but it costs huge amounts of money to run the operation, with high-priced anchors, news reporters, camera crews and outdoor broadcasting vans that can reach anywhere. Businessmen think this is all we need for a good TV show - cameras, presentable newscasters, and OB vans and equipment. But good journalism does not flow from investment alone, it flows from commitment and ethics. This cannot be guaranteed when TV news channels are as dependent on advertising to survive as newspapers. The money needed to invest in good journalism is simply not enough or not there. Continued on the next page.. When the money is not there, and you still have to attract eyeballs to lure advertisers, it is logical to look for short-cuts to make your programmes interesting. Thus TV shows become boxing rings for politicians to shout and scream at one another (but never to come to any conclusion), and print media has to focus on the bizarre and the salacious to garner custom. Large parts of the regional media are reduced to blackmail to get advertisers to pay up. Which brings us back to Murdoch – and his relevance to Indian media ethics. Murdoch’s big contribution to the media world is that he made them viable by making newspapers exciting. But there is a point beyond which excitement cannot be sustained by natural means, even if those natural means include publishing blow-ups of buxom women with textile deficits. This is where his editors thought nothing about hacking the voicemails of ordinary people and paying policemen for information to get a rise out of their readers. And this is precisely what is happening in India. We don’t know if newspapers or TV channels are hacking into people’s mails, but we do know that many senior journalists are probably political fixers, are aligned to specific political parties and vested interests, and are used by the police and politicians to plant stories that do damage to others. The US was widely criticised for using embedded journalists while prosecuting the war in Iraq, but in India, every media house is stuffed with journalists embedded in the organisation by vested interests. Little wonder – barring a Tehelka here or an intrepid journalist there - news happens only by default. Take the case of the cash-for-votes scam. It broke in full TV view, when BJP politicians landed up in Parliament with wads of currency notes before the 2008 confidence vote. But the media took it as a mere tamasha. Parliament did a cursory examination and lobbed the ball in the Delhi police’s court. The Delhi police sat on it till the Supreme Court reminded them about it. Suddenly someone got arrested, and the media is full of stories again about who is going to be questioned. But did the media do any followup work on who did what, and who the real culprits were? Tehelka probed it a bit further to suggest that it was probably a BJP sting operation that didn’t manage to snare the right Congress bait. So we ended up throwing Amar Singh’s flunky into jail. Does the media have to be reminded repeatedly to follow through on stories? [caption id=“attachment_44619” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“Wendi Deng, (L) wife of News Corporation Chief Rupert Murdoch, (R) holds his hand . AFP”] ![](https://images.firstpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/murdoch-afp.jpg "BRITAIN-MEDIA-POLITICS") [/caption] The popularity of sting operations is another piece of evidence that newspapers and TV channels want their scoops without cost or effort. While it does take courage and effort to enact a sting, this is actually the easy way out: anyone with a few thousand rupees can buy a pen-cam or button-cam to record TV footage clandestinely. It takes weeks or months of hard work to go for real documents and evidence to nail the corrupt. In recent years, stings have yielded less and less by way of real scoops as most politicians have by now wised up to this reality. They now talk only to a very small trusted list of journos. Stings are now focused entirely on the unwary public: some hapless hospital staff, who turn away the poor, or stories like that. In fact, stings now work only when you unleash them on the absolutely weak and unwary. From focusing on the rich and crooked, stings now focus on the uneducated and the poor. What this means is that we are going to increasingly use stings to invade the privacy of ordinary people or to do corporate damage in the name of an exclusive story – as the Radia tapes proved. They were used to settle scores in the telecom world. No one is safe. Not even Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister. When leaks and clandestine recording are increasingly going to be about the invasion of privacy and damaging people’s reputations, what sort of journalism are we conducting? The powerful, after briefly being the targets of sting operations, have now learnt to use the power of telephone recordings and spy-cam operations for their own ends. And we are willing tools in their hands, thanks to the fact that media owners do not want to invest in real journalism. Somewhere, sometime, the whole economics of media operations needs to be given a relook by mediapersons themselves. And till this issue is sort out, we are going to be pawns in the hands of vested interests. That, and a stronger self-regulatory body, is the need of the hour.

Tags
Indian media Media Warfare Murdoch NOTW
End of Article
Written by R Jagannathan
Email

R Jagannathan is the Editor-in-Chief of Firstpost. see more

Latest News
Find us on YouTube
Subscribe
End of Article

Top Stories

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Israel targets top Hamas leaders in Doha; Qatar, Iran condemn strike as violation of sovereignty

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Nepal: Oli to continue until new PM is sworn in, nation on edge as all branches of govt torched

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Who is CP Radhakrishnan, India's next vice-president?

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Israel informed US ahead of strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha, says White House

Top Shows

Vantage Firstpost America Firstpost Africa First Sports
Latest News About Firstpost
Most Searched Categories
  • Web Stories
  • World
  • India
  • Explainers
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Cricket
  • Tech/Auto
  • Entertainment
  • IPL 2025
NETWORK18 SITES
  • News18
  • Money Control
  • CNBC TV18
  • Forbes India
  • Advertise with us
  • Sitemap
Firstpost Logo

is on YouTube

Subscribe Now

Copyright @ 2024. Firstpost - All Rights Reserved

About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms Of Use
Home Video Shorts Live TV