Inauguration of 60-crore National Media Centre in New Delhi was also an occasion for the Union Government to come out with a big mix of ideas and perceptions about the media industry in the country as it will be taking shape in an age of advanced information technology. The stage belonged to the Government and the Congress party, wherefrom the twin operatives subtly reflected on what they consider is media’s over-reach. Their emphasis is on assessing whether it is consistent with the established norms of investigative journalism. The tone and tenor of three main speakers, the Prime Minister, the Congress Chairperson and the Information Minister, though varying minimally in force of persuasion, left little doubt in the mind of their listeners that they were giving vent to their suppressed and subdued reaction to three-year long media battering of the Government on a number of scams. They raised some fundamental questions with the clear intention of insulating the Government against new trends in investigative journalism that, according to them, seemed to be sitting on judgment allowing them the liberty of indulging in campaigns of calumny or witch-hunting. There are genuine questions; for example, where is the dividing line between media trials and fair judicial trial or the issue of anonymity masquerading as privacy or the reconciling of the interests of the investors and the readers /viewers etc? These are theoretical questions and have surfaced owing to the unprecedented expansion of information technology and economic reformation.
There is dimensional change in information industry in our country. The Prime Minister has emphatically claimed that this change has happened because of economic reforms introduced during last two decades. Nobody would challenge that claim. The big change in the social and economic life of India is visible and need not be contested. But the consequences of economic reform should not necessarily mean downslide of standard and patent ethical values that media in a democratic system is expected to maintain. Liberalization has opened space for vast private investment and new channels of information have stepped in. The investors in media industry have stakes and the finesse of relationship between the providers and the viewers/readers remains in place. It sometimes brings the media in a confrontational stance with the Government and the latter has only limited space for substantiating its position. Thus while the viewers enjoy the right to information, the Government would not want to be left starved of the same right. This is the justification that the speakers on the occasion put forth for opening the National Media Centre.
Perhaps it is the social media that has raked debate in public about the dimensions of its new role. The term freedom of press or the functions of the fourth estate also have assumed new meaning and new dimension in Indian democracy. The ethical aspect is not a subject of new debate and its frame remains what it is. But the fact is that people have become highly obsessed with urge for inquisitive and deeper enquiry into the system of governance. The citizen emerging more in the profile of a tax payer is also eager to know what rights the state provides him to make his life comfortable.
Lastly, while the media cannot have the freedom of indulging in calumny campaigns and witch hunting, the state cannot become intolerant to objective criticism. If a scam is being probed into, individual names will naturally come in. Enquiry is a process which is carried out in different ways and shapes. Ultimately, the tax payer has a right to know where his money has gone and to whose benefit. Is he the beneficiary? That is what he would like to be told.
The proposed National Media Centre is perhaps to function as a wing of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. As such, the Government will be provided space for disseminating information on its position on various issues facing the nation and also supplement it with full justification of its action. It can lock horn with the other in an open debate. We think that the Government has the right to information on its own and should exercise it whenever needed. The Government needs to look at media as facilitator and organizer of public opinion and not a policemen keeping close watch on each and every move it makes. People want cooperative and not confrontational attitude between the media and the state. We are confident that the proposed organization called National Media Centre will prove highly beneficial to promoting healthy aspects of social media in our country and that it will be handled by very capable persons of wide nationalistic vision.
Follow our WhatsApp channel