MEDIA

“Information rules, information produces war, information changes the world. If you can control the information, you can control the world. The media found its power some time ago. Media is powerful enough to dislodge a US president. But slowly, steadily, there is deterioration in the media and a crisis of credibility is developing.”
This was stated here by veteran columnist Prof. Yasin Ashraf whose columns in Malayalam Daily Madhyamam are read avidly. Prof. Ashraf speaking to a select gathering here on September 25, said if MEDIA could be considered as an acronym, he would expand it as Mass appeal, Ethics, Debating, Inclusiveness and Accountability. But today the same acronym stands for Market promotion, Embedded journalism, Dumbing down, Insularity and Agenda-setting.
Prof. Ashraf while addressing a seminar on “The Indian Media: Crisis of Credibility”, said Media no longer represents masses but disseminates information that is marketable. “Certain truth is not to be told and media today restricts the truth and coverage of certain news,” he added. He said in wars today, the media persons move with the advancing armies and their only source of information is what the Army doles out. Factual and objective news is never reported. He said in the North East and in Jammu and Kashmir, the media does not cover the news independently and relies on the security forces.
He said ‘paid news’ is now a widespread phenomenon and newspapers today get paid for publishing certain information and for withholding certain other. It work both ways. Quoting an English author, he said newspaper have today assumed the role of delivering consumers to producers or industries. Mergers and takeovers and acquisitions have resulted in monopolies in media and diversity decreasing day by day.
He said worldwide, 40 crore copies of newspapers were being sold to the readers and they were all dependent upon western sources of information which ensures that they publish what the Western monopoly media houses want. He said, even if the Palestinians throw stones and Israel bombs Gaza, the newspapers would say ‘Israel bombing was in response to attack by Palestinians’ without any reference to what Israel has been doing by building walls, usurping the Palestinian lands, and killing and imprisoning them on a daily basis.
Offering examples from domestic scene, he said Love Jihad controversy was a creation of the media and in Dr. Hanif’s case, the Australian media helped the innocent man while the Indian media was all for proving him a terrorist.
Ashraf said truth was a rare commodity in the media and journalists were up for sale. P. Sainath had exposed the paid news phenomenon but it had existed since long. Politics-bureaucracy-media nexus has rid the Indian media of all credibility. He said the need of the hour is to set up media watch committees, train media persons with inculcation of commitment and integrity and back such mediamen with a robust civil society.
Earlier Mr. Siddique, from circulation department of The Times of India presented an overview of the media scene in India. He said while the largest selling Urdu daily sold 55,000 copies a day, the largest circulated English daily sold 35 lakh copies daily. He said hundreds of news channels were competing for news and advertisement revenue but Muslims had hardly any presence in the sphere.
Mr. S. S. A. Khader, a former bank manager, proposed a vote of thanks.