Restoring the Faith

BY B.P. Sanjay| IN Media Practice | 30/11/2009

In recent weeks, there has been a renewed concern about the role of the media during elections, and the extent to which the media has indulged in abusing its democratic status as a watchdog. Regulation of any kind is shunned in the name of the hallowed ideal of the freedom of press etc. No doubt, generalizations have to be avoided as a few saner members of the mainstream media (MSMs) have stuck to their 'ideals,' yet there have been repeated assertions that the rest of the industry will heal itself through self-regulation. However, there is no visible sign of the latter happening any time soon.

It has been pointed out -- in the context of Maharashtra elections - that the space-selling concept has come full circle, with hitherto unheard of terms (such as packages, slotting etc.) becoming accepted media lexicon. The political class cannot contain its glee: the last bastion of notional democratic criticism and opposition has been won over. The media is now ready for cooption, notwithstanding the fact that the ownership of the media by the political elite is already on the rise, and even being consolidated.

In the absence of cohesive civil society media-monitoring mechanisms, turning to the Government for reining in the media is beset with a different set of problems. The fact is that those who now sit in judgment -- over errant media practices -- have benefitted from overzealous media practices of space-selling masked as news. This only adds to the limitation of such regulatory exercises.

The aftermath of the Maharashtra elections also saw a rather hard-hitting analysis about the language media -- particular the Hindi media -- by the noted journalist and analyst Mrinal Pande in The Hindu. It was, perhaps, an unintended typographical error when she refers to the language media as 'vernacular' as she has been constantly critiquing the use of the word as a colonial legacy in the past. This apart, her analysis of the abrogation of the public sphere by the Hindi media only echoes the systematic obliteration of editorial discretion in favor of the dynamics of response and space marketing.

Her passionate plea to move towards realistic newspapers whose costs are based on reader support, advertising, and sound editorial practices is worthy and timely. To some extent, the situation is compounded by the loss of readership  across the Indian language media segments (as indicated by the IRS 2009). The loss of readership is worrying because managements often begin pushing for more aggressive revenue enhancing practices at the cost of the news and editorial functions.  To say that the readership has declined due to loss of faith is, perhaps, farfetched at this stage. However, it is true that only a few English dailies have shown negligible decimal point increases in their readership.

Other developments - notably the expansion of the telecom base - are also silent contributing factors to the loss of readership. The shift towards GEC television is a major factor that has already been recognized. The radio in the private sector may, by default, opt out of even registering a cursory claim of occupying a critical space in the mind-set of the people that is now used to it as nothing more than a MP3 player. All India Radio continues to perform its news function. However, while its mandarins could scream and warn the world about the kind of news they could expect from the private media (once it was opened up for the news segment), critics who dubbed it as being merely a state voice seem to have lost their power of speech. We are not far from having news segments sponsored by various interest groups and auction of news hours during campaigns, budget sessions etc.

The phenomenal expansion of the telecom sector--particularly the mobile sector -- has improved the teledensity to nearly 45 per cent. The 500 million plus mobile phones -- with their capacity for receiving and sending a variety of content -- is now a veritable frontier for 'new media' based information, education and entertainment content.  With producers and influencers being able to directly lure and inform the people, the intermediary role of the media is being effectively challenged.

This is more so when they are doing nothing more than presenting the views of their paymasters through news, columns, and features.  The 'digital natives'-- being used to cryptic messages -- have already moved away from their hard copy based reading habits. The broadband penetration of around 8 million is not yet tempting media content to migrate to the Internet as a full scale alternative.  

While these developments and analysis might sound like being rooted in technological determinism, armchair cynicism and coffee table forecasting, the writing on the wall is there. The media needs to mount a massive project for the restoration of faith which will ensure that its fundamental role in democracy is still valid, and that the aberrant practices of the 90s were overenthusiastic responses to market sops. This is better done now than later: i.e., before  a post 1980s generation completely gives up on news content, and lose its critical faculty in responding to policies and programmes that are bound to affect them.