An external agency to control media is dangerous in a country like India which has the history of government intervention in the freedom of media, said Sasikumar, veteran journalist and chairman of Asian College of Journalism.
Sasikumar said this while delivering the N N Sathyavrathan memorial commemoration lecture on ‘social auditing of media’, at Kerala Press Academy here on Wednesday. “If the government conducts a referendum, the people would support the proposal to have a an external agency because of media excess. Though the media is prone to excesses, inequalities are brought out by the same media,” he said.
“The separation between formal media and social media is very thin and it is not clear where the formal media ends and the social media takes over. Blogs have become a major source of news for the media as happenings across the world are being reported by bloggers real time, said Sasikumar, founder of Asianet. Sasikumar said that anchors of English news channels present news with a preset agenda and they conduct discussions in a way that suits their agenda.
“Invitees expressing an opinion different from their line are often ignored. In the case of Indo-Pak relation, they demand the nation to declare war against the neighbour. Media is not supposed to serve what the people want. Giving what people want is a dope seller’s job,” he added.