Media Ownership - Who Will Bell the Cat?

Part I  

Affiliation to a particular ideology for profit or otherwise is inevitable in the life cycle of any publication. But when it happens at the cost of good journalism, it is time to step in. But the big question, who will bell the cat? 

“So which political line are you aligned to”, asked an acquaintance when I told him I was back into active media after being on the fringes for almost seven years. The question hit me hard opening my eyes to the realities of journalism in India today, a realization that has got further confirmed during my numerous meetings with editorial and business heads of media houses over the past few months.

It is not that one was not aware of the political affinities of most media houses in the country, more so those operating high-decibel TV channels and particularly in the vernacular. But it does indeed come as a shocker when the common reader routinely expects every journalist or media person to toe a political line. At another level it also reflects the distrust and surprisingly, the abject acceptance of colored writing from almost every journalist and publication today. Perhaps it would be safe to assume the reader is wiser and takes what he reads today with a heap of salt.

To be part of a tribe is de rigueur for journalists today. “If you don’t have a line, survival is impossible in journalism today”, cautioned a friend (not a journalist) who has been part of the media scene for close to three decades and was reconnecting after a long time. Perhaps as if to confirm this, another friend, (a senior journalist and past colleague), informed me he was in talks with a North-based business house to kick off a digital publication. “The group wants a distinct right leaning editorial approach and I am working on it”, he added. It is quite fashionable and common for journalists to be “Right of Centre” now-a-days. It is only the daring few who openly brand themselves as moderates or even left of center. 

The reasons for this are not difficult to fathom. Family owned business houses run most leading media organizations in the country. And when business interests blend with political interests, good journalism is bound to take a hit. Over time good journalists only fit into the establishment’s line of thought and agenda and carry the baggage along when they change organizations.

Media Ownership by business houses in India: Source TRAI 

Political affiliation is inevitable at some point in a publication’s life cycle.  So why debate this topic now, one may ask. While individual bias, based on personal conviction is itself not wrong and seen as acceptable now, there is no system of checks and balances to ensure agenda-based opinion is kept away from news. More importantly bias with the objective to promote political or business interests is the malady that afflicts most media today.  

As a result the reader is left with little editorial choice other than to read multiple newspapers of different hues to get the other side of the story and come to his own conclusions. In the case of TV, it is a Hobson's choice. Even with the power of the remote, the viewer is helpless with all channels living in an “echo chamber” where one apes the other for TRPs. The same studio hopping talking heads hold forth on any topic, while everything else, primarily syndicated footage, is a breaking story. 

So much so it did not come as a surprise when the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) putting out a consultation paper on Media Ownership said: “There is an increasing trend of influence of political parties/politicians in the media sector. Political parties either directly or indirectly through surrogates control newspapers, TV channels and TV distribution systems”. Inviting comments from the public it went on to add: “Regulating ownership of media outlets is thus essential in the public interest, as a guarantee of plurality and diversity of opinion. It is, therefore, topical to start talking about regulation of media ownership.”

However, the jury is still out on how and who is to regulate the media. Further who will regulate the regulator? The government doing so sounds incongruous as we have seen media owners often act at the behest of the party in power and even the government machinery. And then, we also have the question, is the media mature enough for self-regulation? 

Read Part II here