Whatever Happened To Journalistic Ethics!

Have journalistic norms and ethics become a casualty of the pace of change in mass media? Many media persons seem to have abdicated their responsibility, suggesting that you should mechanically do your job and not bother your head about journalistic ethics, commitment and quality. Today, the common man is being wronged and mislead by being provided with defective and manipulated information and statistics.

News can manipulate and be manipulated. Government and corporations may attempt to exploit news media by censorship and share ownership. Some media persons may disclose military secrets and other sensitive government information which may be contrary to public interest; just to grab attention. This is dangerous. Our media should try to mould genuine public opinion on an issue of national or local importance, instead what they do is feeding them with fabricated and twisted news and views so as to influence their opinions in favor of all and sundry that contribute a few column centimeters or help fill a commercial break.

I would not be wrong to say that, most of the Indian Media is politically biased.
We know that there is not a single news paper or visual media which is not run by a family in this country. If you consider CNN-IBN it is the most visibly biased visual media channel ever India have seen, so obsessed with Gandhi dynasty, they are totally after Narendra Modi and BJP. Of course, they have to have allegiance to their business partners and their political patrons. They cannot run the show without it. But, will it be worth it if it is at the cost of national interest? The answer is no!

Some news channels and magazines have taken the responsibility of poking their noses into everyone’s personal and private lives. Salacious details of the lives of public figures are a central content in many media. Publication is not necessarily justified simply because the information is true. Privacy is a right and one which conflicts with the fundamental right of free speech.

Though, we have the Press Councill Of India, It’s doing no good to us. The condition will get worse if we do not react. As they always say, “ If you do not stand for something, you will fall for anything.” So here, in this country, media responsibility is decided more by column centimeters, corporate and political stories (story in the real sense of the term), prime air times and programme and event sponsorships than by anything else. Free press, freedom of expression, citizens’ right to be heard and informed are paper tigers known much more to the ruling than the ruled.

Raunaq Kalia