Comments on: Media Watch – A Necessity of Our Times

By: Tony Jose

Tony Jose — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:15:59 +0000

@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.

By: Vineeth Jose

Vineeth Jose — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:34:52 +0000

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.

By: Kenney Jacob

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:01:06 +0000

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.

By: Nikhil

Nikhil — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:42:53 +0000

‘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.

By: Kenney Jacob

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:40:23 +0000

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.

By: Tony Jose

Tony Jose — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:20:05 +0000

I got it, but how can we do it without legislative and judiciary power..?

By: Nikhil

Nikhil — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:19:29 +0000

@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.

By: Kenney Jacob

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:11:10 +0000

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.

By: Tony Jose

Tony Jose — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:05:58 +0000

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.