The'right' News

THE FREEDOM we all have today generates competition and this competition further breeds excellence, and that is what makes a successful society. Likewise, the competition in media today is healthy but now it’s turning into a ruthless war and with this, the quality and definition of news has changed. Today’s print media believes in popularity amongst its readers due to the affects of consumerism, whereas the electronic media is busy increasing its television rating points (TRPs) to gain maximum viewership. Advertising and profit-making business has its roots deep inside the media since the past few years. All this leads to a point where we can say that the media organisations in today’s world are a business.
Floating in the midst of nowhere, the media is forgetting what is to be shown to its viewers and to its readers. The Information and Broadcasting minister has often asked for a debate on the role of the press and the limits to its freedom. Whether the press and media are using its freedom in the right direction towards public welfare or not.
The first is: When does a news channel lose the right to be regarded as a news channel? Anybody who has observed the staggering decline in the quality of Hindi news channels will know the rubbish they show to fulfill their 24/7 time slots. They also have started regarding any celebrity related news of any unusual happening as ’breaking news’. Many of them run comedy programmes featuring stand-up comedians, who do not even bother not to satirise the news. Some also feature many fictional programmes and over-exaggerate the crimes in the city. So far, the English news channels have not followed suit, but the trend is dangerous. The tabloidisation of real news ie presenting the genuine stories in a trivial manner: The Rakhi and Mika kissing controversy became somewhat bigger than the nuclear deal, the presidential election or deaths of hundreds of people in a natural disaster.
With all these shown and printed, the consumers have also started getting hitched to it. The consumers tend to take what is given to them blindly, therefore it becomes important and a responsibility for the media, to publish and broadcast the right and correct content that is ethical, and is not biased, in turn, leading to the development and making of well-informed citizens - to make them people with good civic sense. This all will lead to the integration of the society and help in nation building.
The media should come to its senses and try to be what it is meant for. It should come to realise that it is responsible towards the society, so it should not be biased.
If the media does not mend its ways, then it will slowly have to face government intervention in form of codes and ethics, broadcasting bills, limitations etc in its working, which will spoil its freedom and the power of pen will dry out.