03-17-2006, 07:37 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Anatomy of Fourth Estate</b>
MV Kamath
INDIAN MEDIA: ILLUSION, DELUSION AND REALITY, EDITED BY ASHA RANI MATHUR, RUPA, RS 395
What is right - or wrong - with the Indian media? At last count the total number of registered newspapers in India stood at an astounding 55,780 and the total circulation of newspapers at 142 million printed in 101 languages! Right now India is in the midst of a media explosion. Not only are practically all newspapers doing well, Hindi newspapers like Dainik Bhaskar and Dainik Jagran are breaking all circulation records as is the Telugu Eenadu.
Yet doubts are being expressed at the manner in which "national" newspapers are functioning. As SV Sista and Jagdish Rattanani, have noted, currently the media is largely run by a breed of managers who have not been trained to have anything to do with, let alone understand, the complexities of journalism. A deliberate blurring of the lines is noted between the newsroom and the boardroom, the latter in command and the former reduced to a supporting role.
The fact that the glamour brigade has taken its toll on some senior members of the profession so that it is not uncommon to see, hear or read editorial leaders more out of their own news environment. Lack of investment on the news side is leading to a downgrading of journalists practising the trade with no prospect of their growth.
What on earth is happening to the Indian media? It is this subject that has been dissected with remarkable objectivity by a host of distinguished journalists and it is a pleasure to read them. The comments may sound sharp but they are basically fair. P Sainath, for instance, writing on the moral universe of the media, says <b>"quite a bit of reporting on rural India now simply views people there as buyers".</b> The bottom 400 million are not to be viewed as people but as a "difficult market to tap".
DN Bezboruah, former editor of the Guwahati-based The Sentinel notes in anger and sadness that "for the mandarin of New Delhi, the eastern limit of India has always been Kolkata, regardless of what the map of the country may indicate". Very rightly upshot he is at the thought that the so-called 'national' media in India has shown total apathy towards the problems facing the Northeast, calling it an "abiding injustice" adding that "the metropolitan media has remained a silent spectator to the total lack of industrialisation in the region."
Similarly Gowri Ramnaryan is extremely analytical of the print media asserting that few newspapers deal with cultural matters. As she puts it, <b>"The editing desk has experts at work on the political columns, business and sports pages. But culture? Few publications think that expertise is required to edit the art pages. Here you have sub-editors who don't know raag from raas, tirmanam from tihaayi". Ramnayayan concedes that there may be competent editors but insists that they are there "by serendipity rather than by design". </b>
Her complaint is that the entrance of a new brand of players, the business community, offers little hope, considering that corporate sponsorship is depends on market dynamics. As she puts it, "It sees culture as a means of publicity for consumer products (offering) no stability or security for the slow, long-term, patient nourishing of the arts". And she couldn't be more right.
That is indeed the complaint made by Sista and Rattanani when they make the point that "all flavours of non-journalistic talent, mostly of the consumer goods selling variety have undermined news operations and fattened selling operations". Raj Chengappa has another complaints, and that is against city supplements published by some of our dailies.
There is no question but that the media - specially the English media-is changing. But in which direction? AK Bhattacharya is concerned with the changing paradigms for media coverage of scams. According to him the belief that financial scams have increased with the onset of economic liberalisation is "completely mistaken".
Nothing, he says, could be further from the truth.<b> What seems to be true is that newspapers in the pre-liberalisation era (the period prior to 1991) were less focussed on economic and business news</b>. Barring the financial newspapers, general dailies would relegate most business or economic reports to an inside page. If a MP called Mudgal hogged newspaper headlines it was because he was a parliamentarian. But times have changed.
Time was when there was no clear editorial direction given on reporting financial scandals. The Haridas Mundhra scandal was the first financial scam that newspapers gave adequate prominence to. All these essays beautifully presented in this volume by Asha Rani Mathur are in honour of Prem Bhatia who was a journalistic icon in his times. He passed away in 1995, and it is in his memory that this fabulous volume has been put together.
Bhatia himself was an eager media watcher in his times and as early as in March 1994 had written in The Tribune, which he then edited an article on how proprietors were taking over the functions of an editor, Prem then asked: "Does such an arrangement not reflect an effort on the part of the proprietor to put the editor in his place, so to speak, by showing him that he is not indispensable?" Good question.
The same can still be asked, considering how many editors have now been all but marginalised. The Prem Bhatia Trust deserves to be congratulated for helping bring out this fabulous volume. It is critical and thought provoking. Above all, it tells us how things are in the media. Surely it is time that the truth, however unpleasant, is told. The only thing missing in this volume full of wisdom and honesty in on index. <b>Integrity is all very well, but a book without an index is a geography text without a road map.</b>
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MV Kamath
INDIAN MEDIA: ILLUSION, DELUSION AND REALITY, EDITED BY ASHA RANI MATHUR, RUPA, RS 395
What is right - or wrong - with the Indian media? At last count the total number of registered newspapers in India stood at an astounding 55,780 and the total circulation of newspapers at 142 million printed in 101 languages! Right now India is in the midst of a media explosion. Not only are practically all newspapers doing well, Hindi newspapers like Dainik Bhaskar and Dainik Jagran are breaking all circulation records as is the Telugu Eenadu.
Yet doubts are being expressed at the manner in which "national" newspapers are functioning. As SV Sista and Jagdish Rattanani, have noted, currently the media is largely run by a breed of managers who have not been trained to have anything to do with, let alone understand, the complexities of journalism. A deliberate blurring of the lines is noted between the newsroom and the boardroom, the latter in command and the former reduced to a supporting role.
The fact that the glamour brigade has taken its toll on some senior members of the profession so that it is not uncommon to see, hear or read editorial leaders more out of their own news environment. Lack of investment on the news side is leading to a downgrading of journalists practising the trade with no prospect of their growth.
What on earth is happening to the Indian media? It is this subject that has been dissected with remarkable objectivity by a host of distinguished journalists and it is a pleasure to read them. The comments may sound sharp but they are basically fair. P Sainath, for instance, writing on the moral universe of the media, says <b>"quite a bit of reporting on rural India now simply views people there as buyers".</b> The bottom 400 million are not to be viewed as people but as a "difficult market to tap".
DN Bezboruah, former editor of the Guwahati-based The Sentinel notes in anger and sadness that "for the mandarin of New Delhi, the eastern limit of India has always been Kolkata, regardless of what the map of the country may indicate". Very rightly upshot he is at the thought that the so-called 'national' media in India has shown total apathy towards the problems facing the Northeast, calling it an "abiding injustice" adding that "the metropolitan media has remained a silent spectator to the total lack of industrialisation in the region."
Similarly Gowri Ramnaryan is extremely analytical of the print media asserting that few newspapers deal with cultural matters. As she puts it, <b>"The editing desk has experts at work on the political columns, business and sports pages. But culture? Few publications think that expertise is required to edit the art pages. Here you have sub-editors who don't know raag from raas, tirmanam from tihaayi". Ramnayayan concedes that there may be competent editors but insists that they are there "by serendipity rather than by design". </b>
Her complaint is that the entrance of a new brand of players, the business community, offers little hope, considering that corporate sponsorship is depends on market dynamics. As she puts it, "It sees culture as a means of publicity for consumer products (offering) no stability or security for the slow, long-term, patient nourishing of the arts". And she couldn't be more right.
That is indeed the complaint made by Sista and Rattanani when they make the point that "all flavours of non-journalistic talent, mostly of the consumer goods selling variety have undermined news operations and fattened selling operations". Raj Chengappa has another complaints, and that is against city supplements published by some of our dailies.
There is no question but that the media - specially the English media-is changing. But in which direction? AK Bhattacharya is concerned with the changing paradigms for media coverage of scams. According to him the belief that financial scams have increased with the onset of economic liberalisation is "completely mistaken".
Nothing, he says, could be further from the truth.<b> What seems to be true is that newspapers in the pre-liberalisation era (the period prior to 1991) were less focussed on economic and business news</b>. Barring the financial newspapers, general dailies would relegate most business or economic reports to an inside page. If a MP called Mudgal hogged newspaper headlines it was because he was a parliamentarian. But times have changed.
Time was when there was no clear editorial direction given on reporting financial scandals. The Haridas Mundhra scandal was the first financial scam that newspapers gave adequate prominence to. All these essays beautifully presented in this volume by Asha Rani Mathur are in honour of Prem Bhatia who was a journalistic icon in his times. He passed away in 1995, and it is in his memory that this fabulous volume has been put together.
Bhatia himself was an eager media watcher in his times and as early as in March 1994 had written in The Tribune, which he then edited an article on how proprietors were taking over the functions of an editor, Prem then asked: "Does such an arrangement not reflect an effort on the part of the proprietor to put the editor in his place, so to speak, by showing him that he is not indispensable?" Good question.
The same can still be asked, considering how many editors have now been all but marginalised. The Prem Bhatia Trust deserves to be congratulated for helping bring out this fabulous volume. It is critical and thought provoking. Above all, it tells us how things are in the media. Surely it is time that the truth, however unpleasant, is told. The only thing missing in this volume full of wisdom and honesty in on index. <b>Integrity is all very well, but a book without an index is a geography text without a road map.</b>
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