Some stats:
50,000+ print media
375+ broadcast media
200+ news channels
45.3 million active internet users
Explosive growth in new media (including mobilephones)
Advertising revenues growing at a healthy pace
So who sets the agenda for the content and information that we are subject to 24x7?
Do you feel todays media is 'tabloidised' more than ever before? I remember one channel head briefing me to sell 'news' as entertainment. Well, it is:) And it also is the primary conveyor of information, news and views in our society.
Media plays the role of watchdog over society, overlooking proceedings. So why does it resent a watchdog to overlook proceedings over itself?
Guess the owners and the Editors are a powerful community. We live in times of conflict and turmoil, and I wonder if that makes some, above scrutiny? Is a watchdog over media an abstract notion in journalism?! Now there is a thought...
When everything is breaking news, and all stories are sensationalized and dramatized then how do we sift between reality and drama? Do we even understand as public what journalism must stand for today?
The state has made repeated attempts to regulate the functioning of the media. Barring Emergency, our media has vociferously resisted these attempts. Journalists and media owners came together to resist any regulation.
Am all for democracy and responsibility. It would be great if all things true and powerful could conduct themselves with vibrancy and rigour and self policing and righteousness to ensure no need for a regulatory body ever! Only if we humans were infalliable, could this utopian situation exist!
The widespread criticism and condemnation of the broadcast media's coverage of the November 26 attacks in Bombay was an interesting example of the face-off between the media, the state and the public - a rare instance where all three agencies were in disagreement with one another. The media contention that the government was unprepared and the absence of a central agency to give out official information resulted in a free-for-all. The government responded by seeking curbs on media coverage in instances of terror attacks. SO when will media show its social responsibility and own up its excesses- the rights/wrongs?
Sure the internet is becoming a powerful medium to carry clout but nowhere near powerful yet.
In today's fractured media environment, where competition to grab the media market is more intense than ever before, ethics are the obstacles in the race. Different sections of the media are governed by vested interests - economic and political.
When media refuses self-scrutiny or fails to acknowledge its mistakes they cannot even agree to disagree. So how can the media be made accountable?
