Poll Analysis | Indian Media, A Complete Sell out?
Indian media has witnessed a transformation over the years, owing to the growing trend in planted news and paid news. What was once revered as the fourth estate of democracy has become an assemblage of sell outs who sell newspaper space or screen time to parties with vested interests.
The recent episode involving Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL), its chairman - Naveen Jindal’s exposé on editors of Zee News and Zee Business is a just a cursory glimpse of a much murkier system. The chairman of the corporate giant performed a sting operation on the news channels’ editors who were caught on camera for blackmailing the former in exchange for a huge amount of money. The latter promised to suppress the news story accusing the former of corruption.
I Paid A Bribe conducted a poll asking its readers, “Does the extortion bid by Zee News and Zee Business give a glimpse into the world of corruption in media?” A whopping 95% of our readers are of the belief that unrestrained corruption does exist in the field of media whereas only a meagre 5% of our readers still have faith left in the fourth estate of democracy.
Several instances of faux pas witnessed in Indian media stand as testimonies to its degrading condition. This is bound to question the credibility of the published content. Media’s participation in election coverage came to the fore during the Maharashtra assembly elections (2010), giving glimpse into how news space is traded by publications without camouflaging the same as advertisements or advertorials. In response, the Press Council of India set up the sub-committee comprising Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Sreenivas Reddy to inquire into the racket. The Election Commission that saw ‘paid news' as a real threat, ordered for the creation of “district-level committees for scrutiny of paid news during election periods” after the 2009 polls.
One can also consider news space traded for corporate advertisements. Samir Jain, vice chairman of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd openly supports paid news. “We are not in the newspaper business. If 90 percent of your revenues come from advertising, you are in the advertising business.” he states. Also, newspaper space is abused to up profits and revenue by well established companies. This proves to be profitable both for news media as well as the company with a perfect give-and-take agreement that serves as the icing on the cake. Anil Ambani was accused of buying news space to publish reports to help bolster his company’s reputation that would in turn fetch him higher profits in the share market.
Paid news defies all ethical standards that unbiased news stands for. News is carried to inform, to make the public introspect and to generate issue-related debates. If the platform is used to convey an underlying intention, then news will cease to be unbiased form of content. These have to be checked by media houses as well as readers.
