FDI in News Agencies
FDI
in News Agencies
Dasu
Krishnamoorty
In
permitting 26 per cent FDI in print media the government has excluded news
agencies, which will continue to be 100 per cent Indian owned. Our news agencies, PTI and UNI, and their
language divisions, have managed to escape the notice of the pro-FDI lobby, but
their turn may come sooner than later. My main objective in writing this
article is to alert the public on the scenario that would open up once our
government extends the ¿reform¿ regime to news agencies also. News agencies
played, acting globally and as a cartel, a major role in the globalization of
western ideology and markets. They imparted us a consciousness that has
strengthened our implicit faith in every word and image that originates in the
west. The debate on the entry of FDI into print media overlooked crucial issues
connected with the production and distribution of news.
Every country
takes care to see that its communications structures are not encroached upon or
eroded. It is a way of keeping at bay influences that are likely to harm the
peoples¿ democratic and social perceptions. See what ten years of MTV have done
in changing our urban and metro scene. A veteran media person like B.G.Verghese
thinks that nothing has been subverted and makes light of the need to be
ourselves. He ought to take a look at how a decade of cable TV has changed
consumer preferences in favor of foreign goods and hurt the domestic economy.
This is only a preview of what foreign media can do.
It is
important to remember that images and content foreign TV and print media relay
become the basis for American foreign policy decisions. They trigger U.S.
actions overseas. A survey shows that TV networks in the US covered 16 of 21
countries between 1988-92 because there was serious civil strife in these
countries. Stephen Hess says, "In terms of what gets covered, a
distinguishing characteristic of American news operations, especially
television news, is that they are so prominently concerned with violence."
Violence and conflict are often cited as pretexts for U.S. intervention.
"Amrita
Shah, a correspondent at Imprint magazine in Bombay who strings for Time-Life
News Service commented: Stories from Asia that do not directly affect the United
States tend to be one of two kinds: stories that confirm stereotypes -- for
example, stories of widow burning or stampeding elephants that confirm the
western notion of India as a wild and exotic land are sure sellers, even if
they are in actuality extremely rare occurrences. Or stories that indicate
conformity to a familiar western way of life. Stories about India¿s
privatization program or of a newly prosperous middle class investing in home
appliances fall in this category," says Hess.
Before the UNESCO
debates of the seventies opened our eyes to the communication conspiracies of
the west, Indian newspapers used to reproduce the Reuters and AP
canonization of such oppressive rulers like King Farouq of Egypt, the Shah of
Iran and dictators like Fulgencio Batista of Cuba, Anastasio Somoza of
Nicaragua, Ngo Din Diem of Vietnam, Syngman Rhee of Korea. This unthinking
endorsement showed a layoff of editorial discretion. The editors were all
carried away by a conviction that there is no room for opinion in wire copy.
News agencies can and do, and did in reality, set our agenda by circulating
facts, denying which needed effort and expense.
Globalization is an invisible and unmanageable process beyond the control of any national government. It is like the toothpaste that refuses to go back into the tube. Our newspapers have not escaped the overrun of globalization. With Reuters and AP entering the Indian media scene, they began depending heavily on these news agencies for their foreign news needs, even after they had achieved an identity of their own. Therefore, globalization, whether in the area of