Can the media be held accountable for the authenticity and genuineness of the news that they publish. Almost all newspapers publish wrong/misleading information. Most of them have political/religious biases.
Media uses the very clever technique of reported speech to keep away from trouble. There are rumors that, we could confirm from reliable sources that, the relative of the dead accused that, etc are some of common phrases that we will find in a newspaper.
Lets look at a classic example of media non sense. Remember the manorama spy case in which a few innocent scientists were branded as spies by the news paper. The reporter who is the master mind behind those obnoxious stories about the case is now in a very senior position.
Remember the Rajani S Anand case and how the media fuelled the emotions of the idiotic student organizations. The media helped to create anti college opinion and political parties took full advantage of that situation and made education stand still for 2 weeks in Kerala.
The poor principal of the college suffered for many years until the court pronounced him innocent. Did any newspaper publish what the court finally decided ? SFI still celebrates her death anniversary.
The instant someone comes up with a criticism against any media they start a discussion about freedom of speech, the role of media in democracy, the forth estate bull shit etc as if someone just tried to do injustice to them. Isn’t it time that this situation changed ?
Media has become very powerful influences in our lives. The words that they publish make and break careers, it can give life and it can kill. Its time to create a media watch system in which every media will be scrutinized and held accountable for what ever news they publish.
Readers please submit more media stories that were either wrong or published to protect vested interests.
What if that system is also corrupted as Media.During the time of emergency, the govt. had control over PTI. However, such a control was used to propogate a set of lies, or to hide somethings which can cause troubles in the Political systems.
China has rigrous control their Media, which actually hides human rights violations and their own history etc. Such a media is nearly useless.
Comment by Tony Jose — November 3, 2009 @ 6:35 am
I did not say that the media should be under the government control and only govt approved news should be published. What I said is media should be held accountable for whatever stuff they publish. If they publish defaming wrong information there shuld be be a fast track mechanism to punish them.
Not everyone can fight the mighty media, so we need a system in which the news is daily analyzed and charge sheets issued.
Comment by Kenney Jacob — November 3, 2009 @ 6:41 am
@Tony I guess what Kenny meant was that we need a media watchdog than a ‘Central Board of Media Censorship’ which would be a draconian move. Rather, what we need is something on the lines of OFCOM of UK. Some newspapers have something called a Reader’s Editor, like The Hindu , however, we are yet to realize the full potential of such an initiative, which, the media houses, are reluctant to intoduce fearing a backfire.
Comment by Nikhil — November 3, 2009 @ 6:49 am
I got it, but how can we do it without legislative and judiciary power..?
Comment by Tony Jose — November 3, 2009 @ 7:50 am
No special powers are required, just that people need to start suing media companies for their wrong doings. Once they a plethora cases are filed… they will automatically start auditing their own stuff.
Comment by Kenney Jacob — November 3, 2009 @ 8:10 am
‘Legislative % Judiciary “Power”‘ Hehehe
All you need is an independent body consititued by an act of the parliament (like many of the independent bodies like TRAI, CBFC, etc).
@Kenny beg to differ with you! If it were that Simple, we would have had a million more cases in our already up to the brim courts.
Comment by Nikhil — November 3, 2009 @ 9:12 am
If we can constitute a special body to prevent media harrasment, nothing like it. But media will react very strongly with their lies about media freedom and will start discussion about it and compare us with china.. and so on.
What we need is an independent body whose only aim is to verify the content in mainstream media and issue legal notices.
Comment by Kenney Jacob — November 3, 2009 @ 9:31 am
infact media can influence and blackmail the 3 other estates of democracy! Its the most powerfull but ugliest. If u go through some of the national channels lets say, India TV, Starnews, Headlines today, Timesnow, AAJ Tak…the amount of shit they show as breaking news is just terrible.
Media should be responsible for what they show on tv.
The real problem these days in sensationalisation. Thy make a mountain out f a mole. News that dont really matter to anyone are big breaking news today.
Comment by Vineeth Jose — November 3, 2009 @ 1:04 pm
@Nikhil,
TRAI, CBFC are regulatory bodies which decides before the event. However it wont work due the reasons Kenney mentioned. So, as Kenney mentioned, an independent body is obviously a good idea, but neutral it will be considering the power of our Media. Considering the point Vineeth Jose said, they might have a tendency to blackmail the person. Maybe, we should have a special judiciary mechanism like Consumer court. In my view media is afraid of only two things.
1. Court,
2. Rashtrapathy.
Comment by Tony Jose — November 3, 2009 @ 1:45 pm