The present contest between media versus politics is not only boycotting 14 anchors (opposition alliance INDIA has decided to boycott the shows of 14 TV anchors of the country) but also deteriorating trust among all the pillars of democracy.
It is also giving the message of erosion of mutual balance and mutual roles. There is no doubt that in the last few years, the media, especially the electronic media, has hurt its language, terminology, morality, restraint, discretion, independence and democratic character, due to which instability, opportunism and corporatization have become prevalent in the entire journalism.
Surprisingly, some faces became high profile or five star journalists and became agents in offering media business.
Some became political middlemen and some experts in sowing seeds of hatred within the society. Media became agents in business offerings.
In the media scenario that has emerged in the last years, journalism has given evidence of a drastic decline in its quality, credibility and integrity.
Today, if 14 identified faces of the media world are being declared untouchable in the court of the opposition alliance, then this is an extraordinary development and the effect of which will hurt the morale of journalism in some way or the other.
The irony is that even where the parties of the opposition coalition ‘INDIA’ are in power, the expectations from journalism are not different or independent.
The price of media freedom has to be paid either by getting entangled in a criminal case or by bypassing government advertisements.
According to the information given in the Lok Sabha, the Central Government has distributed advertisements worth Rs 3138 crore to print media and Rs 3260 crore to electronic media from 2014-15 to December 2022.
But now the state governments are also creating the same scenario. If the AAP government in Delhi promotes itself by distributing advertisements worth Rs. 600 crores, then there is a reason for the queues among the media.
Today, no power can see the media becoming strong, while on the other hand, a crowd of people and objectives are gathering in journalism, who neither have professional standards nor the passion to operate for the vibrancy of democracy.
The ability to give a strong shape to the media in the consumer form of news is also disappearing from the society.
The media, which is dancing between the society and the system, is losing its power, and under the guise of polarization, its appearance has changed due to the crimes of majoritarianism.
The boycott of fourteen anchors is showing how much shamelessness there is in the media, but this action to correct it is also putting the freedom of expression in the dock.
Obviously the decline of the electronic media is deep, but until the anchors’ masters are caught, corruption will continue from the national level to the ownership of the states.
It would be better if India Alliance advocates wholeheartedly for media freedom in its states so that this message gets reinforced to the nation.
