CHENNAI: Highlighting that news reports must benefit people, Madras High Court Judge Justice V Ramasubramanian on Tuesday said that news published with a motive to create “cheap sensationalism” is against values.
Delivering his address on the topic ‘Journalism Values’ at A N Sivaraman Memorial Lecture organised by Dinamani Trust and International Institute of Tamil Studies here, he said that the advent of electronic media has posed a severe challenge for newspapers, which has intensified in the last 15 years. In a bid to tide over the competition, a section of media introduced ‘sting operations’ and came out with several exposes.
“A news channel carried out a sting operation on a school teacher, leading to the phenomenal raise in its TRP ratings. But later, a newspaper exposed it as a fake sting operation. That such a thing destroyed a teacher remains a sad reality,” he said.
Against this backdrop, Justice Ramasubramanian said, “Any news that is published with an intention to create sensationalism is against values. On the other hand, news that benefits people is valuable,” he observed.
Earlier, speaking after inauguration, Secretary of Tamil Development and Information Department T Udhayachandran, lauded the contributions of late freedom fighter and former editor of Dinamani, A N Sivaraman for the cause of Tamil. Dinamani editor K Vaidhyanathan also spoke on the occasion, while Vignesh Kumar K, vice president (marketing), The New Indian Express group delivered the vote of thanks.