This is something I spoke on in a recently held conference.....
FREEDOM OF PRESS
Good evening
ladies and gentlemen. I consider it a huge honor to be able to address this august gathering of eminent people at the International conference of Jurists.
The topic I have been given is something close to my heart namely freedom of
press.
Before joining the legal profession I had joined a national daily The
Times of India as their reporter and contributed whatever little I could to
this noble profession.
I feel as a
journalist you can cover a whole lot of issues which in normal circumstances you
would never be able to do and as a journalist you can attempt to solve a large
number of issues which affect the common man and a whole multitude of people.
Now coming
back to the topic in what context do we read the expression freedom of press?
If we see the behavior of press generally across news channels, across
newspapers we find that the press has the freedom of expression in what they
say or what they express.
The press
has the freedom to comment upon generally all issues connected with governance
and mis-governance which is associated with the same term.
Today the
press has in fact become a beating stick for various forums both political and non-political
with which they can settle scores.
Without naming any particular media house or
newspaper if one looks around carefully and is intelligent enough to discern
which political party is latching on to which media house it's not difficult at
all to find out.
Yet today I
find that the maturity expected with the amount of freedom the press has got
today is not visible. You can see journalists misusing this freedom without any
issues at heart and sometimes it pains you to see them being used like that.
What one
media house might see its power to influence public opinion would appear to be
a misuse of the freedom of press to another person.
Unfortunately
the media does not exercise this freedom available to them under the
Constitution of India in the manner in which they are expected to do that.
Some people
might say that it is more of a revenue consideration which prompts a particular
media house to say what it does or to propound a particular ideology. Yet today
in the name of freedom of the press atrocious things are being done which
nobody would have thought of a couple of years ago.
Every night
at nine o'clock if you look around you on various TV channels you will find the
same story running on two or simultaneously more channels. So is that a
coincidence or a planned convenience is a thing difficult to say.
As soon as
elections are announced you have various election polls coming up where one
party or the other is always projected as having the upper hand and you're left
wondering whether this was done as a matter of deliberate convenience or is
there any truth to it. Sometimes the same agency is doing the polls for two or
more channels.
Then we have
personality projections where a particular personality is being projected again
and again so that ultimately a public perception is built up around the
personality and carried forward by them.
On the other
hand you also have a negative personality projection which has just the
opposite effect of running down particular personalities so much so that a
public perception is again built up against the personality and the image
lingers on.
The freedom
of press is actually a misnomer in these modern times and the press also knows
that it has great power among its readers and viewers. Question remains that
should this power be used with a certain amount of circumspect restraint and
caution or just squandered away aimlessly.
Whatever be
the outcome the press certainly has a very important part to play in developing
society and building a strong public opinion so everyone needs to take their
job seriously if the public opinion has to be balanced.
The media
also has to understand that with freedom comes a lot of responsibility which
can't be taken for granted and this freedom has to be exercised with the utmost
humility at their command.
Even though investigative journalism is fast developing in India,
the quality of the Indian Press in many respects leaves much to be desired.
Even though, as a result of various wage awards, the emoluments of journalists
have considerably improved in the last few years, adequate talent is not still
attracted to this field.
There is also a great deal of lethargy which leads to
large scale reproduction of speeches as well as gossip from the corridors of
power instead of well organised news. The tendency even of some of our top
newspapers to rely on articles from the foreign Press when dealing with world
affairs shows a lack of initiative in developing Indian talent for analyzing world problems from the Indian point of view.
The media must
understand that it has an important role to play in shaping the destinies of a
nation but then a whole lot of responsibility lies on their broad shoulders to
bring about this change in a fair and non-partisan manner.
Various social issues
can also be discussed freely in the media today and a material change can be
brought about in the manner it is sought to be discussed. Various issues like
the women empowerment and health-related programs food related issues can all
be discussed by the media and a qualitative change can be brought about by them
if everything is handled fairly.
Here's hoping that
the media will be willing to grab the space available to it in the shaping of a
nation rather than seen to be compromising on various issues on the saying of
any political forum or party.
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