How free is the indian media?

[vsubbu48]

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Political leaders and many think-tanks in India take great pride in India being one of the largest democracies in the world. It is often glossed over that a real and great democracy requires a strong and truthful media. People in general tend to believe to a large extent the news purveyed by the media.

Our country is being ruled by the Gandhi family for the past nine years. But as countrymen we know very little about our ruler Sonia Gandhi, who hardly gives any speech or interview. Still, at times the media reports that Sonia expressed unhappiness over certain untoward incidents. Recently the media reported that the cabinet reshuffle had the stamp of Rahul Gandhi (Congress youth icon) whereas those appointed as ministers were old guards resulting in the increase in the average age of the cabinet. What is the truth behind these shenanigans? Here is a link to the article exposing the truth behind the scenes written by Sandeep Bhushan, who was a beat reporter in NDTV.

Remote Mindset | OPEN Magazine

 

[sangom]

This is a very misleading article and springs possibly from the writer's disappointment and frustration about his career as TV news reporter.

No news is reliable unless you are yourself an eye witness. I believe such spin-doctors (this usage itself is from the US) exist for all VVIPs and at least many VIPs. If one is a keen analyst of news, then he/she should be able to interpolate the hidden/unsaid portions and come to one's own independent judgment.

 

[vsubbu48]

This is a very misleading article and springs possibly from the writer's disappointment and frustration about his career as TV news reporter.

No news is reliable unless you are yourself an eye witness.

In other words one has to be a media person to confirm every news. Is it possible, Shri Sangom?

Most of the startling revelations like wikileaks, electronic surveillance by the US have been brought to light by insiders, may be disgruntled. The recent revelations of irregularities committed by Ranbaxy were also by an insider. Did we dismiss them as the ramblings of disgruntled persons?

 

[sangom]

In other words one has to be a media person to confirm every news. Is it possible, Shri Sangom?

Most of the startling revelations like wikileaks, electronic surveillance by the US have been brought to light by insiders, may be disgruntled. The recent revelations of irregularities committed by Ranbaxy were also by an insider. Did we dismiss them as the ramblings of disgruntled persons?

This person does not reveal anything like the examples which you cite — wikileaks, snowden, Ranbaxy. What all he says that he was not allowed to report certain items of congress party and its leaders although he routinely covered congress matters.

Has he "revealed" anything other than Ahmed Patel being congress' spin doctor, that if he is pleased he may even attend marriage of news reporters and that alone will give them a high status, etc.? In short it is just cribbing, nothing else, nothing more.

One need not be a "media person" to make an intelligent guess about news; one should have enough commonsense and be familiar with the area of news which he likes. For example, if I like Kerala politics, and have followed it for some time, it will be easy to guess what different media say and where the "spin" is most likely to be. And, if we get very same/similarly worded news, then it is either true or completely false!!

 

[auh]

Most of the startling revelations like wikileaks, electronic surveillance by the US have been brought to light by insiders, may be disgruntled. The recent revelations of irregularities committed by Ranbaxy were also by an insider. Did we dismiss them as the ramblings of disgruntled persons?

As common people, all we can do is to take things with a pinch of ginger. We need not dismiss everything but at the same time we need to understand that mostly what is being reported need not be the truth. It might be more often a perceptive analysis.

Who knows what more lurks underneath the leaks of people like Snowden etc?

 

[Nara]

Shri vsubbu48, one of the problems afflicting mainstream journalism is the nexus between journalists and the powerful people they cover. There is a symbiotic relationship between the two. There is a kind of unwritten rule -- never write anything too embarrassing to the powerful and in exchange the reporter is granted access. This kind of quid pro quo turns reporters into stenographers. This is why when a Bradley Manning/Julian Assange or Ed Snowden shows up, it is the media people, engulfed with jealousy and shame, who are at the forefront spewing venom at them.

Stephen Corbert, the well known comedian and political satirist, nailed it when he went to the lion’s den, the annual White House Correspondences dinner, and said in his address:

“…..let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The President makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home.”

In the most part, this is what the main stream media (MSM) has become, with a few occasional exceptions. I have a feeling this is what this beat reporter in India is complaining about. The media has been coopted by the powerful elites, in fact they have become part of the elite. A reporter inviting powerful elites to his/her wedding, and those people showing up, is a sure sign that the reporter is already coopted. For a reporter to be respected as an unbiased journalist, the least he/she must do is stay out of the social circle of the powerful elites he/she covers.

Now, if MSM can’t be trusted, what are we to do? I don’t think it is wise to attempt to look for hidden or unsaid messages behind the reporting of these establishment stenographers and make our judgments, that would be nothing more than speculating. I don’t know about India, but in the U.S. there are some truly intrepid reporters. Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian is one such reporter who was instrumental in exposing Obama for who he is, a souped-up Bush/Cheney who can give a nice speech. There are many such reporters. Reading a broad cross-section of such journalists is a much more reliable way to stay truly informed.

In this respect I wish to bring to your attention the death of one such fearless reporter, Michael Hastings, cut down by the vagaries of modern life, a car crash on Tuesday. He was only 33. Yet he was widely respected as one who takes no crap from the powerful. His reporting brought down General Stanley McChrystal, and for this he was vilified by the establishment journalists – how dare a young punk report the truth behind the curtain. These MSM journalists are so entrenched in the power structure, they can’t stand a truth-teller. Michael Hastings’ passing is a great a loss for all freedom/liberty loving people all over the world. I mourn his untimely death.

 

[tks]

Every country gets the Press it deserves

Every nation gets the government it deserves

The above quote has to be amended to include "Every nation gets the Press it deserves"

People want free things including news. News reporting is big business but it is not news that they report - they all need to get people to watch any which way they can. This means sensationalizing the information if any, and getting access to powerful figures is part of 'making news'.

With internet blogs news cycles have to compete with millions of bloggers for attention of people so they can get advertisers to fund their program.

Who would want to alienate the rich and powerful?

Modern Presidents in USA know this and use the Press to become their mouthpiece and in return the friendly reporters get special access.

India never had true freedom of press anyway in my view. In USA I see that the situation is becoming more like India.



Obama will boycott Fox news

 

[Brahmanyan]

Every nation gets the government it deserves

The above quote has to be amended to include "Every nation gets the Press it deserves"

People want free things including news. News reporting is big business but it is not news that they report - they all need to get people to watch any which way they can. This means sensationalizing the information if any, and getting access to powerful figures is part of 'making news'.
With internet blogs news cycles have to compete with millions of bloggers for attention of people so they can get advertisers to fund their program.
Who would want to alienate the rich and powerful?

Modern Presidents in USA know this and use the Press to become their mouthpiece and in return the friendly reporters get special access.

India never had true freedom of press anyway in my view. In USA I see that the situation is becoming more like India.

Obama will boycott Fox news

Well said Sri tks,

Every freedom has its own limitations conditioned by circumstances. Freedom of Press also suffers due this inherent factor. Rich and Powerful (including the Party in power) have a say in media reporting. Of course during the infamous emergency period a few bold men in the press tried to defy this rule and suffered a lot. That was in the past. Today it is different. The visual media try to impose their views on the viewers by engaging selective panel members in the prime hour discussions. Radia Tapes had exposed how some of the well known faces of media bowing down to the influence of powerful corporate lobbyist.
Those who wish to brush their memories on the Radia tapes can go to the following weblink of "The Hoot", which does media watch in the sub-continent.
Radia Tapes: Media ethics at the crossroads
Regards,
Brahmanyan,
Bangalore.

 

[vsubbu48]

Here is a link to the article by Arindham Sengupta, Executive Editor of Times of India, one of the most powerful newspapers of India. It is worth guessing that if the Times group, a major beneficiary of state advts, itself is complaining about the government's acts of muzzling the media, the situation should be very grave indeed.

Muzzling the media: Freedom is at risk - The Times of India

 

[Iyyarooraan]

Newspapers are basically gossip mongers. They can thrive only on that. Politicians have called the media by all names. It does not matter to them. If gossip maami or maama visit us we offer coffee or something to munch. If we do not, we will not know anything about the world. And who can offer coffee, etc. to the newsmonger? The moneybags, celebrities and politicians of course. They thrive on that in-built weakness.

 

[vgane]

The Media is controlled by the party in power to a large extent...When the recent Himalayan Tsunami occurred in UK (Uttara Khand) the Prince in waiting was found missing in action

Later it was said that he is holidaying in Spain and now in other U.K (United Kingdom)...Why is there so much secrecy about the Vice President of the ruling party...None of the mainstream media have covered this? Shows the nexus clearly

 

[sravna]

The rich and the powerful can buy and bully people. Unless one can rise above temptations and pressures one can do nothing worthwhile for the nation. The same holds for a journalist too. But in this society it is very difficult to do that as the overwhelming majority have become conformist to the rich and the powerful due to temptations and pressures. It would now take a himalayan resolve and discipline for someone to go against the tide. So. if you ask me whether the Indian media has real freedom, I would say that has been usurped.

 

[kunjuppu]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/opinion/why-india-trails-china.html

here is amartya sen's(Nobel Prize winner) take on india, its free press and health care...a couple of quotes might gladden some hearts

MODERN India is, in many ways, a success. Its claim to be the world’s largest democracy is not hollow. Its media is vibrant and free; Indians buy more newspapers every day than any other nation. Since independence in 1947, life expectancy at birth has more than doubled, to 66 years from 32, and per-capita income (adjusted for inflation) has grown fivefold. In recent decades, reforms pushed up the country’s once sluggish growth rate to around 8 percent per year, before it fell back a couple of percentage points over the last two years. For years, India’s economic growth rate ranked second among the world’s large economies, after China, which it has consistently trailed by at least one percentage point.

....

Inequality is high in both countries, but China has done far more than India to raise life expectancy, expand general education and secure health care for its people. India has elite schools of varying degrees of excellence for the privileged, but among all Indians 7 or older, nearly one in every five males and one in every three females are illiterate. And most schools are of low quality; less than half the children can divide 20 by 5, even after four years of schooling.

India may be the world’s largest producer of generic medicine, but its health care system is an unregulated mess. The poor have to rely on low-quality — and sometimes exploitative — private medical care, because there isn’t enough decent public care. While China devotes 2.7 percent of its gross domestic product to government spending on health care, India allots 1.2 percent.

..............


The case for combating debilitating inequality in India is not only a matter of social justice. Unlike India, China did not miss the huge lesson of Asian economic development, about the economic returns that come from bettering human lives, especially at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. India’s growth and its earnings from exports have tended to depend narrowly on a few sectors, like information technology, pharmaceuticals and specialized auto parts, many of which rely on the role of highly trained personnel from the well-educated classes. For India to match China in its range of manufacturing capacity — its ability to produce gadgets of almost every kind, with increasing use of technology and better quality control — it needs a better-educated and healthier labor force at all levels of society. What it needs most is more knowledge and public discussion about the nature and the huge extent of inequality and its damaging consequences, including for economic growth.

 

[கால பைரவன்]

I am sure Amartya Sen will sing a different tune if some other party were ruling at the center.
In any case, the MSM is corrupt beyond any of our imagination. No, I am not talking about prejudiced editorials, biased coverage, small slant towards their favorite party or ideology etc etc. I am talking about outright lies.
I had earlier posted here how TOI ran a hit job on Jagan Reddy because he was political opponent of Congress in AP.
See Details here: http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/general-discussions/7818-interesting-tidbits-print-media-3.html
And the lies need not be on political news. The MSM even lies about natural calamities. Please see images below. ABP news takes a news image of a bus falling off the cliff in Bolivia and passes it of happenings in Uttarakhand.

 

[கால பைரவன்]

Another outright lie about the happenings in Uttarakhand, this time by NDTV.
See attached image.

 

[கால பைரவன்]

Image for post above. Lucky that the social media is alert that these fraudulent reporting comes to light once in a while.