Looking at recent trends, the complexion of conventional media in India has altered beyond recognition. Current affairs have converted to college-like debates on television. With wise men and women belonging to the so-called intellectual class taking stands on inane issues…for and against.
Anchors, on so-called news channels, set the debate agenda based on pre-decided outcomes, the editorial policy of the owners, funders or advertisers. Newspapers are full of sensational stories on crime.
Can all this be called journalism in the true sense?
It is increasingly difficult for consumers of information to discern and sift between real news and views of those who have control over the content delivery system of TV channels, magazines and newspapers. Additionally, online newspapers and blogs are propping up by the dozen, each competing to outdo the other with catchy headlines. Most of the content is either just re-written content or blatantly plagiarised verbatim.
The Press Information Bureau at the ministry of information and broadcasting provides accreditation to bonafide journalists as part of a mandate to create norms for credible information. Naturally, one of the conditions is that journalism has to be the main vocation of the applicant. S/he should be employed at a recognised media house or working as a freelancer with atleast 15 years of experience as a journalist.
Innumerable journalists in Delhi carry accreditation cards and hundreds of applications continue to pour in. Persons/organisations have realised that this card is a tool to be close to those in the power centres of Delhi.
In this backdrop, those who do not wish to go through the strict formalities for accreditation or do not satisfy the requirements, have found an easier way out. They just go to Facebook, Google+ or even YouTube and post anything they like. With time,they masquerade as journalists by plugging any event online. With easy access to the Internet, and trending social media, the margins between professional journalism and self-expression have got badly merged.
Recently, Jagendra Singh of Shahjahanpur in UP was burnt to death for uploading a series of Facebook posts/comments against a powerful politician, who felt threatened. Online media and even some newspapers started calling the event an attack on a journalist, who was trying to expose a corrupt politician. They had not bothered to look into the reasons and credentials of Jagendra Singh.
Of course, the Press Council would send a team to first investigate if Singh was in fact a real journalist whose sole vocation was journalism. Further, to find out if what he wrote was really true. By the time the report comes out, there will be yet another Jagendra Singh posting more online content on social media.
How does one bring back the focus on pure journalism from the blur of motivated posts on social media? That then gets easily picked up by conventional media and become “mainstream news”.
The availability of broadband connections has rapidly increased in recent years. As a content delivery mechanism, social media has very silently crept into the real domain of pure journalism. There is plethora of opinion on every conceivable issue, social or otherwise.
What India urgently needs today is to position a clear policy and strategy on “Media and Information Literacy”. This is the only way to increase the competencies of consumers of information, no matter on which platform they consume—or even create—information and to what end. It is imperative that the consumer has the power to sift and discern credible information. The provider of information can no longer solely have that command position.
The tables have to be turned if India does not want media in its present form to be overbearing and setting a skewed agenda for as yet non-competent, non-discerning consumers.
Increased competencies in “Media & Information Literacy” within the population will have to begin at the school/college/university level. An entire “MIL Literate” new generation will then be able to finally set a renewed agenda for Indian journalism.
Without prejudice, hundreds of “media training shops” will either have to be shut down or conform to the new concept of Media and Information Literacy.
Of course, to begin with, the first step would be to empower the bureaucracy, judiciary and political class with MIL competencies. That is the way forward for a flawless policy to be not just formulated but suitably implemented and meaningfully driven.