By Arup Kumar Dutta
In the immediate post-independence period, there were two modes of accessing news — print media and radio. The latter, designated as All India Radio, was controlled by the Government, so quite a few unseen hands with strainers sieved the news before the brew could be offered to the public. Such was the low credibility of our radio that Indians mostly went to BBC whenever they wanted the ‘real’ version on important events such as the Chinese aggression of 1962.
The AIR’s nadir was reached during the “Emergency,” when censorship was clamped down on all modes of media, especially the print media. Yet that period saw the Indian Fourth Estate’s finest hour, with a majority of its constituents fighting censorship tooth and nail and often suffering for their effrontery. One also recalls the underground, cyclostyled “Press,” which kept the ordinary Indian up to date about goings- on in the country.
In those days the print media was the only source for credible news and views. Mind you, not that everything was hunky dory, for a few of the newspapers and journals had their own axes to grind. Also, the establishment sought to put across its point of view through publications of its own. But, even then, there was a broad-based solidity and credibility about the print media which, unfortunately, has evaporated with the passage of time.
Moreover, the print media of that era, both at the national and regional level, wielded real importance, and its ‘voice’ was heard. Politicians and bureaucrats inundating the corridors of power listened to what the media had to say and reacted accordingly. Editorials and news items were religiously placed before the big-wigs everyday so that they could sniff which way the wind was blowing. “Letters to the Editor” too were scrutinised and grievances rectified. Journalists were a tough and brazen lot, aware of the power they commanded, but sensibly purveying credible information rather than using the medium for self-aggrandisement.
What a different scenario it is today! The Fourth Estate can wear out its throat denouncing the prevalent chicanery and corruption without as much as moving a hair on the heads of politicians, bureaucrats or the public. Committed journalists can lambast the local administration against its apathy and inefficiency without effecting meaningful changes. Previously, if someone’s name came out for the “wrong” reasons in a newspaper he or she would become incommunicado for months altogether! Nowadays, arrested culprits do not even bother to try and conceal their faces as they are led away in manacles, while the exposed “corrupt” prance about openly, having developed skins thicker than the proverbial rhino.
The process of emasculation of the Fourth Estate began with the intrusion of television in Indian drawing rooms towards the middle of the 1980s. Right from its commencement the idiot box, started in India as a tightly controlled arm of the establishment, and prosaically named “Doordarshan,” unabashedly played its role as a purveyor of news without an iota of credibility. However, if one imagined that the entry of private channels brought credibility in the medium, that was a mistake. This was because private players who later entered the arena had their own games to play, the greatest casualty being the “objective” presentation of news and views.
The problem with the audio-visual media was that it had to attract viewership in order to survive, for without viewers there were no advertisements, and without advertisements there could be no channel! Even for 24×7 news channels a change in the style of news content and presentation was necessary — the style of the Doordarshan-type newscasters with deadpan expressions and monotonous voices would not attract viewers. Moreover, it was the way a piece of news was presented, rather than the basic significance, which served to increase viewership. Thus, the process of sensationalising the most ordinary news item and making it sound earth-shaking began with the intrusion of the electronic media.
At the same time editorial discrimination as to news-worthiness of an item began to play a less dominant role. Being a visual presentation, availability of “footage” was an important consideration, with the result that trivial bits of news got more importance over crucial items merely because the channel had more visuals to air. To make news-presentation‘livelier’, the live “debate” format was introduced, which often descended into farcical verbal fisticuffs, inviting laughter from the viewer rather than a cerebral response. The reality was that the audio-visual media, unlike established print media, had to pander to an amorphous viewership belonging to different social and educational backgrounds, thus presentation and content could not be too high-brow or even directed at a presumed average audience.
The electronic media, perforce, had to aim at the lowest common denominator in order to attract the widest spectrum of viewership. Thus, petty news with which viewers could empathise more readily, rather than those of wider potential impact, took precedence. As is well known, visuals make a more direct impact on sensibilities; thus through intrusion into households, and providing presumably ‘instant’ news, the electronic media made a direct challenge to the print media, coercing the latter to adapt in order to compete.
The problems of the print media were made more acute with the phenomenal increase in the number of publications, as also the invasion of the “wannabe” media moguls. From corporate houses which could boost their business prospects by controlling a media group to politicians who had made their piles through dubious means — there has been a mad rush to grab a slice of the media pie, both print and electronic, thereby eroding its credibility even further. Established media organisations, which had painstakingly built up their reputation through decades of conscientious journalism, suddenly found themselves being challenged by fly-by-night operators, whose concept of news-significance was based on the size of the font of the printed headline.
Unfortunately, the print-media succumbed and took the easy way out. The few that tried to resist found it to be untenable as circulation decreased leading to their final exit. Today, whether at the national or regional level, overt sensationalism is the order of the day, with trite, badly written “human interest” pieces hogging the front pages, which, in the past were put to better use. Equally unfortunate is the total lack of scruples of a major chunk of the Fourth Estate to objectively present news and views. Many of them don’t even blink about openly flaunting their partisan perspectives, unconcerned about how readers would categorise them.
The negative traits displayed by the electronic media have rubbed off on a section of the print media. For instance, the so called “national” newspapers published from India’s capital unabashedly pander to “mass” culture. With such trivialization has come the inevitable emasculation, for the powers that be have recognised that in the realm of today’s Fourth Estate the intelligentsia has been marginalised.
The current information technology explosion has ensured access to news and information from sources outside the traditional media. For the millennials a newspaper or even a news channel is dated. They have their own world literally in the palm of their hands!
(Arup Kumar Dutta, a prominent social historian and writer based in Guwahati, has authored some 35 books, among them The Kaziranga Trail and The Ahoms) (Syndicate: The Billion Press) (e-mail: editor@