Vijayawada: “A larger section of media in India just acts as the party organ of a political party that is in power at the federal level,” says a media educator.
“The media today do not ask disturbing and critical questions about the policies of the govt. to the spokespersons of the political parties and many times, we see the anchors support the views of govt. in power. The anchors just accept the views of their guests if it suits them, otherwise the hound them. The composition of panels on TV news today is quite funny because the spokespersons don’t discuss anything critically and they don’t answer questions asked by the anchor,” said Lourduraj Ignacimuthu SJ, HoD, Visual Communication, Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada.
He was speaking to Matters India on the state of Indian media today.
“I believe that it is the money and power that makes this government move on. Anyone from abroad will be surprised when they hear that the government spends around 45 billion rupees for advertising the PM and governmental activities,” said the media educator.
He also said that the Indian media lost its credibility long ago. “The only media one may believe are such as ‘thewire.in,’ ‘scroll.in,’ and to some extent the Hindu and NDTV (of late). The rest can be dumped into the dustbin. Only those who ask questions on behalf of the suffering people can be considered as true media,” said Father Lourduraj, the former dean of Xavier School of Communications, Xavier University Bhubaneswar, Odisha, Eastern India.
“There has to be introspection on the part of Indian media houses and networks and especially the journalists who still want to follow certain ethics in media reporting,” he added.
Some TV news anchors who tend polarize people with their views must be stopped from appearing on TV news channels for some time. “TV news channels must report news, not views. People expect balanced reporting. Most of the TV news channels in India are guided by the Target Rating Points (TRPs). They do not care whether they are ethically right,” Father Lourduraj said.
He also said that people who are at the helm of affairs at the Federal government and their cohorts have learned the art of fooling people on regular basis. Unfortunately, the educated like slogans, not the real work or performance. This seems to be the trend all over the world, he said.
“Inequality in India truly is galloping because there are no jobs in the market and the money power of the middle class is robbed by GST and petrol and diesel prices,” he added.
There is another point about inequality. Unfortunately, the government has gone harder on NGOs, which were helping the poor in the past four years, in the name of accountability. Most NGOs with Christian background were targeted by intelligence and finance ministry and the government removed them from NGOs list, he said.
This is an allegation. However, this may have some connection to inequality in India.
The previous Congress governments too did not work wholeheartedly for the poor.
“I think the government must make education and medical free for the poor and lower middle classes. Today the poor cannot afford to have school or college education and in some cases, talented youngsters are unable to get the education because they are poor. Education is a weapon of oppression today in the hands of private players,” he said.