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Indian Media Needs A Wake-Up Call

India with all the focus of the world on its IT revolution and technological wizardry can do better when it comes to serving its citizens in-terms of educating them with information. Journalism in India is too much about sensationalism, though I still have hope.
In a recent TV panel discussion in India Madhu Kishwar a senior journalist said that Indian journalists are easy to bribe and are easy to manipulate, according to her such luxuries like land or flats are given to them. Though I do not agree with her views entirely, as they are many journalists who are honorable,we can see from this a perception of journalists in the public eye.

The role of the Indian press should be to go beyond the call of duty of general reporting, it should provide ideas and solutions that can enrich society and further educate the population. India is passing from a feudal to a modern society, but this is a tough period with some people clinging on to the old ways when the world is changing.

Though journalism should provide a role of reporting on entertainment and providing general information to the public there is another important role which is instilling leadership or propagating it.

There should be a balance on reporting on entertainment and sports. Cricket is getting so much of coverage that the main issues of India are not given priority, it is indeed a problem when 90% of coverage goes to entertainment and only 10% to the real issues which are basically socio-economic.
Today 80% of the Indian people are living in poverty, with massive problems of unemployment, price rise, healthcare, education, housing, etc. and social evils like `honour’ killing, dowry deaths, etc. Yet 90% of the media coverage (particularly the electronic media) goes to film stars, fashion parades, pop music, disco dancing, reality shows, cricket, etc.
Add to that we have social problems like honour killing and dowry deaths and caste issues, these are real problems that need to be addressed.
There is definitely not a shortage of stories that can attract the readers in relation to social ills or issues, if the journalists dig deeper, as the word human interest is now the norm and newspapers or magazines love this sort of angle. We have seen a terrible agricultural crisis in recent decades in India, millions of farmers have lost their livelihood (as farming has become uneconomical for the poor and middle peasants) and have fled to cities for jobs which are not there.
There are 860 million Indians living on 25 rupees a day, and 47% of our children are malnourished, a much higher percentage than in sub-Saharan African countries like Ethiopia and Somalia. The gulf between rich and poor has steeply widened in India in the last 20 years.

As regards the third role of the media, that is, giving leadership to the people in the realm of ideas, this is almost totally missing.

In the transitional period in Europe, from the 17th to 19th centuries, the European media played a glorious historical role, and helped in the transition from feudalism to a modern society. Great writers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Junius, John Wilkes, etc. attacked feudal ideas e.g. religious bigotry and despotism, and propagated the (then) revolutionary ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity, and religious freedom. I would like the Indian media to play the same glorious role.

Some people say that the media should supply the people what they want.  I cannot agree with this statement. The media is not an ordinary business which deals in commodities, it deals with ideas. Hence instead of pandering to low tastes , the Indian media should try to uplift society by spreading rational and scientific ideas. This will win the respect of the Indian people for the media.