Media as custodian

Well said, but very few have the courage to defy a proprietor. They will be more diffident after what happened to the editor concerned. It is not so much a question of ideals as of bread and butter. A dismissed journalist seldom finds another job. He earns the odium of being troublesome. The proprietor, in contrast, emerges still more powerful.

Very little has been done to set things right because the weakening of the political system has given the Press a clout which no party is willing to challenge. Since the proprietor owns the paper and can print or keep out anything, he not the editor is propitiated. Politicians know very well which side of the bread is buttered.

Still, it is the courage of the few, as shown by the editor who preferred dismissal to dictation, that will save the tradition. Such examples will some day inspire others. I wish readers, who arealso proprietors in a sense, would speak out and opt for a bold paper that suppresses nothing they think they are entitled to know.

“If you are going to make a successful paper, you must give your editors a great deal of latitude,” said Lord Beaverbrook of the Daily Express, London. “You must not coerce them. You must carry them along with you.” In India it never happens that way. Editors are just sacked. In fact, the scene of journalism is unedifying. The species called the editor is disappearing. More than 90 per cent of the papers are owned and edited by the same family. A few are professionals themselves. Mo-st of the other proprietors have an editor whom they keep on a short leash. Very few proprietors and editors enjoy each other’s trust something basic for an independent paper.

The devaluation of the editor or, for that matter, journalists, is bad enough. What is worse is the deterioration in the standard of newspapers. Increasingly, they cater to consumerism. Pushing up circulation or makingmoney is important but it does not mean one should go to the extent of indulging in trivialities for marketing purposes. The real problem is that populism has the better of ethical considerations.

Sadly, Doordarshan and Akashvani are going the same way. The entire set-up has touched a sordid level in the name of popular response. Information Minister Pramod Mahajan’s statement that government is losing money shows that he is counting the rupees and paise and not bothering about the standards a public-funded media should have. He should know that commercialisation cannot replace social obligation. Nearly 80 per cent of Indians, flung far and wide, depend solely on Akashvani and Doordarshan. They seek information and look for such programmes which identify their cultural ethos. There is no channel to speak to them in their mother tongue. What they get is either propaganda or pontification.

One had imagined that the Prasar Bharati Act would make public broadcasting autonomous and release it from politicalinterference. But the government has not withdrawn its control over it. The board constituted to supervise it was never given finance and personnel. This is still in government hands. Until today, rules and regulations have not been framed to transfer even a modicum of authority.

In fact, the situation now is worse than before. The government has the alibi that public broadcasting is under an autonomous board, while it runs Doordarshan and Akashvani in the same manner as it used to do before the Prasar Bharati Act came into operation. The board is there but it has no powers. All the seven members are part-timers. No permanent members have been appointed neither the chief executive officer (CEO) nor members of finance and personnel. The chairman’s post has remained vacant for the last eight months. The appointing committee, consisting of the vice-president, the Press Council chairman and the government nominee, has asked for the qualifications and terms of CEO from the Information and Broadcasting ministry.But no reply has been forthcoming for the past six months.

The BJP, when it was in the opposition, cried itself hoarse for an autonomous body to purvey news and views so that the media did not become a tool in the hands of the party in power. Now, in power, words like independence and objectivity have disappeared from the information ministry’s dictionary. Once against Doordarshan and Akashvani are at the end of a telephone call from the I&B Minister’s office. Still, Mahajan has the temerity to say that he cannot do anything to improve news coverage or programmes because the Prasar Bharati Corporation was under an autonomous board.

Mahajan has, in fact, thumbed his nose at critics. He has questioned the very principle of autonomy. He has told his ministry’s parliamentary consultative committee that in the face of competing private channels, the government is justified in having Doordarshan and Akashvani under its control to disseminate the official point of view. That is, the BJP’s. He believes that theparty in power at the Centre has the right to control public broadcasting. Naturally, he has the coming election in view. The whole purpose of autonomy, attained after a fight for four decades, has been jeopardised by the BJP. Doordarshan and Akashvani are not meant to be the mouthpiece of a political party. In a democratic society, where free information stirs free response, the official media cannot be in chains.

The very essence of democracy is free and objective information. This applies as much to public broadcasting as to the Press. It appears that Mahajan, like many proprietors, sees no difference between personal, party and professional requirements. He is relatively new to central politics. He has a long way to go to learn what India means.