Speaking at an award ceremony on journalism, Vice-President of India Hamid Ansari urged the media to “shape perceptions and also the national agenda”. In a changed and changing world, vibrant journalism should be a watchdog. It stands for rights and freedom and is not to entertain and titillate. Ansari stressed the need for strong and independent journalism and regretted the slow erosion of fearless editors. He said that the media today celebrated the upper middle class metropolitan readers. The Vice-President should be well aware of the stranglehold of politicians on the media. News is manufactured with a carrot and stick policy. Many journalists become paid hacks with largesse and protection from the powers that be and from the opposition. The Rupert Murdoch scandal in the UK exposed a global rot. In India, journalists have to work on a pittance and so are most vulnerable to corruption. Gone are the days when even Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with her emergency powers could not whip a large section of the press.
The tendency of the Indian press to wallow in sensationalism and target the glitzy world is indicative of current social trends in the country. The emphasis should be on poverty eradication but the press pays only lip service to it. It spends huge amounts of money on projecting an indulgent life style. Like the cinema, the media turns into dream merchants. Sleaze is a money spinner and that corrupts the film pages most. But the really alarming aspect is that even editors are bought by political leaders and corporate advertisers. The reality is hidden to whitewash people and organisations. The word freedom becomes the base coinage of self-seeking politicians. Not many papers and periodicals can claim to be the fourth estate, having an independent identity and moulding public opinion in the right direction.