DailyPost 2548
THE MEDIA STORY
The biggest media story of recent times, has been The Media Story. Media has been the most studied organization; what it does, how it does, why it does, do they any commitment to any cause and lastly, are they as commercial and biased as any other organization. Unfortunately, there are no statutory guidelines on the media and there in no quality control. Freedom of speech and expression in the democratic world provides them the legality which they have using literally for doing and everything under the sun. The spectrum is mindboggling from being outright propaganda machines to 17 media organizations working under the name of the “Pegasus Project.”
Before the Pegasus Project outstanding journalistic collaboration had taken place in Panama and Paradise projects. What they delivered and the manner they did, that too with ultimate precision, should put most of our journalists and anchors to shame, who keeping singing the objectivity story to fool us. Ultimate international investigative journalistic collaboration has also been a media story of our time. Wikileaks in one year brought more content to the public domain than whole of the international media combined, is also a story of our times. Thomas Friedman genre also need to talked about, of journalistic excellence, of being and excellent writer, in tune with the pulse of our times.
Media has been left, right and centre since times immemorial and still they have been broadly delivering to the world what they were mandated to. Famous TV channels in US were known for their inclinations in the recent time. On the other side we have Rupert Murdoch, a media czar of unforeseen proportions, created media stories, which would go down in history; good, bad and ugly, might be the ugliest too. They have been able to cover their own interests for most of the times, if not of the citizens. They were in general not brushed as frivolous with an agenda, that was being followed like fanatics, no holds barred.
Something of that nature has been the tenor, thought and experience behind the recent ban on 14 anchors by the INDIA alliance, may be a desperate act, not able to find any other way. Any amount of forewarnings did not help. Anchors have literally anchored news and narratives the world over, couple of them are worldwide names, hosting news related programs of repute on global TV channels. The current situation in India is called as media under attack by some, but the unfortunate reality is the media has been under attack by the media itself and has been brought to a level of vulnerability, where they are forced to face the music. Credibility is lost, then what is left of the media. India media is crossroads and it has put our democracy also there, will saner counsels prevail, or will they would descent into ignominy, only time will tell.
DEMOCRACTIC MANDATE OF THE MEDIA CANNOT BE IN TOTAL CONTRADICTION TO ITS PRACTICE.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.