FUNCTIONING OF PRINT MEDIA

 To keep any industry in check, you have essentially two bodies – 

i. The law.

ii. A body that encourages, promotes, oversees the Code of Conduct (i.e. Press Council of India, in the case of Indian Media).

  Now, the law deals with an individual or group or company erring on the wrong side of the law. If it is illegal, if it is unlawful, your activities will be reprimanded, condoned or punished. The Judiciary of a country carries out this role.

   However, there is almost always a gray area to everything. Not everything is taken care of in the IPC or any law-book. There is fine-print, and then there is the inevitable loophole. A lot of things are open to interpretations, and hence an action, though not punishable by law, is not incentive enough for someone to not do it. You may morally look down on certain actions and behaviours, but that isn’t always enough to discourage the doer from his activity.

Now why do I speak of all this? How is this related to the field of media? 

    Media too, is motivated by a lot of vested interests to only one-dimensionally discharge its duties as the public-informant. It is a money-making business like any other. Journalism in India is so bad because Journalistic ethics is a small price to pay for fulfilling  personal interests. 

And unethical behaviour is bad, yes. It should be discouraged, absolutely. But can it be punished by law? I’d say seldom to never. This ‘outlet’ is all journalists are really looking for anyway. However, would it be right to say Journalists are at fault? Let’s take a look:

• Ownership patterns

Now, needless to say, ownership influences the selection of news content, the layout, circulation and TRPs. Even as much as the ideology and policy of the newspaper or news channel.

    There are many cases in which ad agencies like O&M have their own PR depts. which organize events and stage press conferences. PR (Public Relations) influences news content – it is essentially a sugar-coated candy with the company’s name brandished on it. TOI, for ex, has come up with Medianet, that accepts money from anybody and everybody to project aspiring celebrities and bollywood hopefuls as newsmakers. The competitors dubbed it as the ‘final prostitution of journalism’. It is rumoured that PR professionals are welcomed to TOI with snacks and iced teas after accepting cheques from them.

   The nature of media ownership is recognised as a structural determinant of the value system and performance of any organisation. The differences in ownership patterns lead journalists to subscribe to different values.

Like I said earlier, the commercial broadcast networks are more profit-oriented when compared to the state-owned or state-controlled stations. Now you know why Doordarshan is hailed for its content and quality.

    

Several newspapers and satellite channels in India are owned by political parties and religious organizations. Obviously,this affects the quality of journalism that is brought to one’s home.

 The nature of monopoly in Indian media, dominated by some media chains and groups is such that it has a vice-like grip not just on the administration alone but also on the editorial policies, posing a serious threat to the proverbial ‘freedom of press’.

     The collecting, processing, and disseminating of information go an artificially manipulated itinerary.Scan through a newspaper like TOI and you’ll notice how they reflect the superfluous problems of the urban consumers and strive relentlessly to help them seek amorphous solutions, and in turn attract the confidence of the advertisers who ultimately fill up the media’s coffers.

Media generates opinions, and media distorts opinion. 

    Is that what it is supposed to do? No.Can anyone stop it? Sadly, no.

One important aspect is that in India, there is no body to regulate the Ownership Patterns.In USA, you have the Federal Communications Commission that looks at Reportage and Media ownership.

• Advertiser Influence

Firstly let’s understand why is advertising so important to media. Yep, it gets it the monies. To put it simplistically – 

i) to subsidize production costs

ii) it accounts for a major chunk of revenue

iii) newspapers flourish through sale of ads, not so much through circulation figures alone.

With such a prominent role in a newspaper’s survival, you think advertisers are going to be all saintly and stick to a fair-game? Hell, no.

    Earlier, there was a sharp distinction between advertising columns and news columns, they were two different departments.

   There exists an Advertising Agencies Association of India in, well, India. This association is an extremely powerful body that has access to the Prime Minister’s Office, and all that. They lobby for change of laws which govern advertising and influence other industries. Similarly, there’s also the Advertising Standards Council of India. Take a guess at the kind of power they have at wielding measures to curb unethical practices in Journalism, and how effective they are. 

   The rat race for ad revenue is indubitably a reason which forces newspapers to compromise on their ethical policies and turn a Nelson’s eye to the issues haunting the society’s have-nots.

As many of the newspapers have capitalists at the helm of affairs, they seldom uphold lofty ideas of the profession of media.

However, considering advertisements are the main source of revenue for newspapers, the exercise of a restraint on the space allocation for ads in broadsheets becomes quintessential to balance revenue and professionalism.

• Conflict of Interest

Dual loyalities. That’s it. Read what’s written above and juxtapose it against a newbie journalist’s glittering ideals of ‘Objectivity and Fair Reporting’. He sticks to one, he loses out on the other. It is all about prioritizing, and unfortunately, the monies (including reputation, job safety, etc) almost always win.

• Shock Value

Exercise your mind to try and recollect at least five of the ten stories you read in the newspaper, or watched on the news channel today. It will either be entertainment, sports, disasters and tragedies. The first two have an inherent bias, because you seek to read about them consciously. The last two encompass ‘negativity’, to sum it up simplistically. Economics, Currency, International Politics, Indian Politics, all focus on what? Problems. 

   Part of why you recollect them so instantly is because of a certain shock value attached to it. Maybe it is the number of casualties that died in an accident, or the gruesome pictures of a war-torn region, or rape headlines. There is a certain ‘Wow, that sucks!’ value attached to all these news items. 

   Brining news from around the world to the forefront is what journalists are meant to do. So why is it unethical you say? Ethics somewhere also asks the doer to consider the level of sensitivity of its receiver. Of course, this is a gray area again, and one might debate endlessly on the thin line between reporting what is true and reporting what is needed. But that is not what we are focussing on right now. The point of contention is, are these graphic images really required? Does it not for a moment strike you as immoral, or at least indecent, that a newspaper boy must out-sell his daily figures by wildly waving the images of mangled bodies on the front page of a newspaper? Does it seem right that the media mints money out of a 1000-odd people dying? But that’s their job. Irrespective, there are certain boundaries that one doesn’t cross. 

   Rape stories never reveal the name or photo of the victim. It is reprimanded by law, under the Obscenity Act (under IPC) to reveal the woman’s identity. But how many such laws can be dictated? There should be, ideally, a sense of ownership and accountability for every action by a constituent of media. But is there? As long as they are ditching the law mandates by a whisker, they are technically free to roam about and ravage every individual’s privacy. 

Shock Value, like many other ethical values, can’t be decided in a court of law, because they haven’t been explicitly written down anywhere. It is solely based on the professional judgement of the Editor of a news paper or channel to publish it. 

• Chequebook Journalism

This is a kind of journalism where investigative journalists and reporters directly pay a source to divulge information.

Seems justified? How about journalists paying criminals and molestors to write about their crimes? British tabloids are particularly famous (infamous?) for practising this. 

  In India, where do you get to see this? In the entertainment industry. 

Bombay Times is filled to the brim with such articles. This tendency is growing in India with the celebrities feeling that a newspaper might be able to sell more with their name attached to it. 

• Freebies and Gifts

Journalists hold the reign to an upcoming star’s popularity or reputation. This star may as well belong to any field in whatever capacity. Nobody wants to get on the wrong side of the media.

   Needless to say, journalists are showered with many freebies and gifts. Some are subtle seducers, while some aren’t. Mature reporters (who’ve put in a couple of years into the industry) are flown in private jets to private parties and opening ceremonies of fancy events. These junkets should not affect a reporter’s viewpoint, yes? Sure.

If gifts are given and accepted, they should ideally not influence the journlaist to write a favourable piece on the Company or against the competitiors. But this isn’t an ideal world. 

A lot of big newspapers like The Hindu issue direct orders to not accept gifts or shares. However, a few like TOI willingly send their journalists on junkets. Case in point, Girilal Jain, ex-editor of TOI had received a large amount of free shares from Reliance for publishing a huge photo of their AGM in the newspaper. This was highly criticized.

• Objectivity

This should be a no-brainer. With so many incentives and pressures circling your everyday work life, the journalists either voluntarily give in and the resolute ones eventually crack under pressure. They are human, after all. 

 Objectivity is like Perfection. It sounds fancy, it sounds fetching, but it needs insurmountable resilience to pursue and maintain it.

The functioning of Media largely involves self-regulation and media ethics is dominantly internal in perspective. But before media sets on its journey to be the watchdog for the common man, it needs to answer this - Is media more for the society or for its own constituencies?

Indian media claims to give its viewers what they want to know. But does it give the viewers what they need to know? Does the media act in public interest? No. Media acts in what the public is interested in.