A crawling media is never good for the Republic

Two days after four Supreme Court judges’ rebellion against the Chief Justice of India, The Times of India came up with a story with the headline: “15 super sensitive cases in past 20 years went to junior SC judges”. Even a junior journalist could make out that the story was a plant. The purpose was to create the impression that posting serious matters to junior judges for hearing was a routine affair. The intent of the story was to run down the four judges who had gone to the press accusing the Chief Justice of India for ignoring them while posting sensitive political matters to a junior judge. Clearly, the publication was siding with the powers that be and was trying to run down the judges who had gone public on an issue that was doing the rounds in judicial circles of Delhi for long.

It is exactly not the job of media. Media by nature ought to be critical of the system rather than being its defender. Ironically, Indian mainstream media, both print and electronic, has largely turned pro-establishment. Not just that, a large and vocal section of our media has turned pro-BJP. It has arrogated itself the right to act as it wishes in ‘national interest’. Since the BJP alone is serving ‘’national interest’’, it is therefore ‘objective’ for the media to stand by the BJP. Republic news channel is the classic example of this kind of dominant trend within Indian media. It is, indeed, a highly disturbing trend. Media, as we have learnt from our college days, is the fourth pillar of the state in a Republic. It is, therefore, granted unlimited right vis-a-vis freedom of expression provided this right is not exercised for inciting trouble.

It makes media by nature critical. Our media is now conformist rather than being critical. Frankly, it has not been the practice of Indian media. It has fought many battles and even forced governments to bend and climb down on many occasions. But of late, the trend has changed. What has forced Indian media to compromise its glorious tradition? I clearly hold the rise of electronic media guilty for this trend. Electronic media business needs huge money to run 24X7 show. Print comparatively is a cheaper operation. If a story in print costs few hundred rupees, it may cost thousands in electronic. Electronic medium being glamourous, it generates celebrities whose salaries are much higher than print media persons. In the late 1990s, when private electronic media made its debut, some new and some established media players jumped into the business.

Media of all hues being advertisement dependent, electronic media, too, must have planned to generate huge ad revenues for its survival. But Indian corporate world does not have such a huge ad spend budget that it could sustain hundreds of channels that proliferated in dozens of Indian languages across the country. The ad budget shrunk with the expansion of the medium. It left only two options for media houses to generate more advertisements. First, go to corporate houses and seek ads. Corporate houses told them we have exhausted the budget. They insisted. Corporates being corporate, they came up with a quid pro quo like you swing a deal for us with a specific ministry and we oblige you. The owner turned to the media person who had his contacts with the minister concerned. He/she thought to do the favour for the sake of his or her own job.

Now the politician jumped upon the opportunity and told the media person: be soft on us and our purse strings will open for you. Thus, the media’s soul was sold and we had a shouting brigade generating mass hysteria in the service of a particular party and ideology. What we see now is simply media-corporate-politician nexus where media house— corporate house-politician interest prevails. What else could you expect from such a kind of media except for what Indira Gandhi’s one-time media manager Yunus Khan once said about journalists during Emergency. He said: “We asked them to bend; they began crawling.” Indeed, Indian media is crawling now. But it is a sad sign for Indian Republic which has been left without a watchdog, an essential component of a sound Republic.