Finally Jagan Reddy and entourage have resigned from the Congress party. But there is an uneasy calm, with everyone involved waiting for his next move. A new party is expected to be launched in less than 45 days. Sakshi TV and channel have benefited from the entire ‘just war’, according to some media observers.
News television in South India is a peculiar animal. It is brazen, it is loud, it is openly aligned with political parties; it practices a no-holds-barred brand of journalism. It will be a poor joke to even talk of journalistic ethics. No one ever claimed anything of the sort.
Since public memory is short, many viewers may have forgotten the ugly footage of Karunanidhi’s midnight arrest during Jayalalithaa’s rule. Such vicious skirmishes are routine in Andhra Pradesh too, though no former chief minister is subjected to similar treatment so far.
In Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajasekhar Reddy’s death has brought twin tragedies to the state – his death itself and his son wanting to be king. As a fond father and loving relative, YSR is rumoured to have been more than generous with favours to family and friends. Just like the unbelievable majority with which he won the state elections, the magnitude of the sums also is said to be unbelievable.
One manifestation of the robust wealth of the family is the media empire they have created out of nowhere, Sakshi newspaper and Sakshi TV. Some 400 to 500 crores of rupees all told to start and further expense till the media house stabilised was available. If not, it is perhaps indicative of the net worth of a politician in power. Eenadu and others washed much dirty linen in public about the nature of investment in the enterprise.
The avowed purpose of the paper and the news channel were quite openly declared during YSR’s lifetime. There are too many powerful anti-Congress media houses; Congress needs its own media house to counter them. The paper was launched with good design and massive print run to outweigh the market leader Eenadu. From the earliest edition of the paper, there was open confrontation between Eenadu and Sakshi. Then the Sakshi news channel was launched with state-of-the-art equipment and very good-looking graphics. Money, as one might guess, was never a problem. Because it either did not get or did not need the small time advertisements that pop-up and clutter the screens of other channels, its screen looked more elegant. The partisan behaviour of the channel was overlooked because that particular malaise was not new to Telugu news channels and papers. When the channel was launched, there was hope that it could be a genuine counterpoint to the existing brand of journalism.
Then, after a glorious electoral victory for a second term, YSR was plucked from the political scene by death. True to Congress tradition, the son Jagan Reddy expected to be crowned as CM. Intense speculation about leadership began even before the funeral was over. Sakshi TV began to orchestrate Jagan’s desire to step in to his father’s shoes. Every second of his public life was put on Sakshi television. YSR’s smiling visage with flower petals showering on it became the second station logo that is fixed on the top right corner of the screen.
Despite the rumoured proximity of Veerappa Moily’s son to Jagan, the Congress high command put Rosaiah in CM’s chair. The Jagan camp began a vicious media campaign ridiculing and jeering everything that the new CM did on the Sakshi channel. Mr Rosaiah was considered one of the most experienced (decades of work as a loyal Congressman) and well-informed finance ministers and was much respected. But for Sakshi he was YSR’s courtier and ‘never in his wildest dreams expected to be CM’, according to one of Sakshi TV reports. The report implied that by default he should have been a Jagan loyalist and ought not to have accepted chief ministership. The weeks of attack on Rosaiah and his repeated complaints in public that Sakshi TV and newspaper were targeting him more frequently and viciously than the traditional opposition papers and channels, Eenadu, ETV and ABN-Andhrajyothi, found no response from the high command.
Jagan began a public mobilization strategy of touring the state to ‘console’ families of those who are supposed to have died of shock and grief on YSR’s tragic death. This he undertook despite the high command and the local party discouraging him. For months after YSR’s death, the son kept up a relentless stream of live coverage of his ‘Odarpu Yatra’ across the state on his channel. The attempt was also to keep YSR’s memory alive in public consciousness so that he can cash-in on it later, a la the Gandhis. Innumerable statues of YSR were erected all over the state.
This strategy was of course supplemented on the channel by direct attacks on rival channels and papers and Telugu Desam party. When Telugu Desam chief Chandrababu Naidu was caught on camera being impatient with a woman petitioner at a public meeting, the channel went to town the whole day repeatedly showing him and calling him Dussasana (the one who disrobed Draupati in court) with sensational graphic/music play-up, interspersed with studio discussions by ‘experts and politicians’.
When serious transgressions and show of public support during the yatras were not evoking any response from the high command, the channel aired a special on the occasion of 125 anniversary of Congress that directly took sideswipes at the party icons, Rajiv and Sonia. In addition to several uncouth titbits about Sonia’s early life in Italy, the programme had references to Bofors. Enraged Congressmen took to the streets, burning Sakshi copies and holding protests in front of Sakshi offices. There was a spate of studio debates on that old chestnut, ‘freedom of speech and expression’.
That week also saw the resignation of Rosaiah and installation of Kiran Kumar Reddy as the Chief Minister. The stage is set for the next round of blackmail through media. Already Sakshi channel is emphasising the fact that Kiran Kumar Reddy never held any ministerial post and that he has no previous administrative experience.
Today, the channel looks like a God channel, with hours of transmission time dedicated to Jagan himself holding forth on how YSR and his family were instrumental in putting the Congress party in power in Delhi.
Most channels and newspapers in Andhra Pradesh have obvious political loyalties. The political parties themselves are fiefdoms built around individuals. Whether Telugu Desam, TRS or Congress, all have feudal, hierarchical and therefore, dynastic inclinations which do not appear to have any desire to democratise. Electoral politics are seen as horse-trading, money-liquor affairs which require enormous amounts of unaccounted for money. Politician-criminals and criminal-politicians have taken over in all parties. Attaining power is all about looting the state exchequer and building the wealth of friends and relatives. It is clear why someone wants to be king.
The tragedy is, the channels and newspapers are being started/used blatantly to promote the political ambitions of one individual or the other. If it is Jagan today, earlier it was Chandrababu. The unemployed lumpen gangs maintained by the politicians are used to ‘astroturf’ spontaneous protests and ‘public response’. The pseudo-events of screaming protestors breaking buses, burning effigies, disrupting civic life are brought in to our living rooms through live coverage, with smatterings of studio discussions. During the 70s and 80s, criminalization of politics was debated much. Now that generation of criminal-politician has understood that media can be used as a tool to promote self and near and dear. We can naively call it democratisation of the media. But what is happening is the systematic undermining of democracy to promote a feudal, caste-ridden, hierarchical system. The ordinary person’s ordinary desire for food, shelter, clothing and education have been invisible on the media over the last several months. Civic administration in cities like Hyderabad has collapsed. At a time when unprecedented rains have facilitated good power generation, there are power shut-downs. Even if any thing is shown/written on these issues, it is deeply coloured by partisan agendas.
The Sakshi saga has some lessons to offer us.
1. If the issue is one of political parties differing in ideology and using the media houses to enlighten people of these differences, it may still be acceptable to an extent. But this is not so. Sakshi TV and paper have begun the attack on a duly elected government belonging to the same party as their owner. The fight here is not ideological, but merely the desire to ‘be king’. This raises an important question about whether politicians can run channels and papers, just as it can be questioned whether individuals with extensive business interests in the economy can be allowed to run media houses. In both cases, when push comes to shove, the media houses resort to blatant promotion of self-interest. In case of the politician, at least the public knows the political connections of the individual. In the case of the business tycoon, without adequate disclosure norms in media, the public has no way of knowing what is news and what is being done to promote business interests.
If political parties run the channels/papers, there is a chance of them serving the ideological agenda of the party, which is also understood as such by the consumer. When an individual belonging to a party owns the media house, as in the case of Sakshi, given the right conditions and the ‘right’ aspirations, the entire political process can be perverted with the help of media.
2. Media houses, by virtue of their origins in partisan political and economic agendas, cannot represent public interest. Public interest is used merely as rhetoric, while personal empires are built through privileged access to power. The media houses, in the name of providing access to grassroots leadership, are actually showcasing local mafias who help strong-arm the local elections. The media houses are abdicating their responsibility to question the antecedents of the so-called local pretenders to leadership, leaving the ordinary citizen to their mercies. In their pretensions to egalitarian access, they are losing sight of what is in public interest and what is not. In such media ecology, which individual journalist can survive if s/he wishes to practice ethical journalism?
Years ago, Justice Sawant as the Chairman of Press Council of India called for alternative ownership models for media industries. Predictably, august media bodies like the Indian Newspaper Society shouted him down. The political class in India seems to be riding on corruption and malleable media. The time has come once again to debate whether business interests and politicians should own and operate media houses in a democracy; whether there is any regulatory framework that can limit the impact of such ownership on general public.
Showing posts with label media regulation advertising ownership news content. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media regulation advertising ownership news content. Show all posts
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Sunday, 17 January 2010
Free Foxes Among Free Chickens
Free foxes among free chickens?
The commercial media operate like hardcore businesses, but when it comes to regulation, they wish to be treated with kid gloves as they claim to serve the values of free speech. What should the moral authority of the state protect - the right of the citizen to ethical journalism or the right of the media to sell its soul?
Posted Friday, Dec 18 09:59:27, 2009 on The Hoot
One of the major recommendations of Akash Bharati, the comprehensive report that laid out the road map for the future of Indian broadcasting immediately after the Emergency, was to scrap the Broadcasting wing of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. The report argued that such a wing is anomalous in a democracy where media must operate as autonomous institutions, autonomous both from the market and the state. The report of course, emphasised the importance of a Broadcasting Council to regulate and to redress grievances.
When one looks at the planned inertia of the I&B Ministry that surpasses the moral inertia of the media industry, one is compelled to think that no ministry would have been better than a ministry that chooses to abdicate all its crucial regulatory obligations.
What are the regulatory obligations?
One, ownership: From the days of the First Press Commission, the ownership of media has been a matter of debate. Several commissions and expert groups have raised the problem of money from other businesses financing media enterprises primarily to generate a favourable policy environment and to promote friendly political actors to serve this purpose. Today, with the phenomenal and haphazard expansion of the media industry, it is clear that a large part of the investment into media is not just from the real economy as in the earlier phase, but from dubious sources - speculative finance, real estate and other parts of the ‘parallel’ economy. There is also a strong enmeshing of political interests in this. When a newspaper is started or when a television channel is started, is it not the responsibility of the licensing authority to examine the sources of finance and the antecedents of the promoters?
The state is constantly juggling with the FDI figures, is it 20%, should it be 26%, or is it better if it is 100%? Perhaps it is time to define what the colour of this money is, in addition to the percentage or whether it is from internal or external sources (is it ok if the investment comes from Indian mafia and not from overseas?). Is this like a ‘Christie’s auction?’ (or a Swiss bank account) that the state chooses to accept known fronts acting on behalf of ‘unknown’ backers? The recent statements of the Minister for I&B promising greater scrutiny of applications for news channel licenses should have been policy rather than an afterthought. And then, what about those licensees who are already ruling the airwaves? Media licenses are given to dubious business/political interests who are already under a cloud.
Two, advertising: Advertising has always been seen as a legitimate source of revenue for media. News to advertisement ratio/ price-page schedule is a dead idea, maligned and killed by the media industry. Today, glossies, newspapers, some news channels and movie channels, all carry disproportionate number of advertisements and without adequate gap between spells. Shouldn’t there be specific rules to define the amount of advertising, kind of advertising and the manner in which it is shown?
In the entertainment sector, channels routinely show paid promotional programming for building hype about some films, often by way of discussion programmes on the issues in a film with the stars from the films participating. The half an hour slots that promote hotels, stores and other commercial establishments that are obviously sponsored by the owners are shown without clarifying that the programming is paid for. The problem in such cases is, the viewer does not know that the praise heaped on the films or establishments is not neutral/fair judgement of the channel. Shouldn’t there be mandatory disclaimer next to the station logo that the programme is paid for?
Today, the arena for product and corporate promotion is not confined to advertising space alone, but has infiltrated the news columns. The latest manifestation of this phenomenon is the rampant virus of ?paid news’ during elections. But the malaise is so wide spread that news gathering in normal times over the last several years is also being done for some monetary or other consideration and rarely ever on the merit of the event or issue. This is widely known and managed by those who seek publicity. Manufactured celebrities and dubious talent abound on the best channels and newspapers. A politician’s mediocre poetry here, a pathetic designer line from a celebrity there, is all part of the fare. There is a conspiracy of silence about this as well, as it was about ‘paid news’. The Unions of Journalists are helpless in dealing with this as the culprits are from among their own ranks. Should there be some form of registration of practitioners by an independent, professional Media Council (like the Bar Council or the Medical Council) with the threat of deregistration for unethical practices?
As far as the pay channels are concerned, two other important issues need to be debated:
1. Some paid entertainment channels earn subscription revenues and go on to advertise on the channels far in excess of the 12 minutes per hour limit (an unwritten rule followed by channels in general). The movie watching experience of the viewer is of no particular concern to the channels. The viewer is paying directly (through subscription) and indirectly (by watching ads) for the same content and is forced to accept poor quality viewing experience to accommodate the channels’ desire to make more money. Any one who has attempted to watch a two and a half hour feature film on TV will vouch for this. It would take nothing less than four hours or more to watch.
The Television Without Frontiers Directive adopted by EEC and the UK limit advertising to 20% or (12 minutes) in any clock hour. The Directive also defines the number and nature of breaks in programmes: a) in films, news and current affairs programmes, and documentaries breaks should be limited to one for every period of 30 minutes; b) and children’s programmes, one break is allowed only in a programme of more than 30 minutes duration. The TWF states that ?in order that the interests of the consumers and TV viewers are fully protected, it is essential for television advertising to be subject to a certain number of minimum rules and standards?? Since 1950s UK also has the system of pre-viewing and approving all advertising shown on broadcast television. No such worldview seems to prevail in India.
2. The channels promote magic remedies like lucky stones and astrological solutions that clearly violate the Cable Act and also the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act. Some of these ads run close to five minutes at a time and are being routinely shown on television channels.
‘In Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India the Supreme Court was faced with the question as to whether the Drug and Magic Remedies Act, which put restrictions on the advertisements of drugs in certain cases and prohibited advertisements of drugs having magic qualities for curing diseases, was valid as it curbed the freedom of speech and expression of a person by imposing restrictions on advertisements. The Supreme Court held that, an advertisement is no doubt a form of speech and expression but every advertisement is not a matter dealing with the expression of ideas and hence advertisement of a commercial nature cannot fall within the concept of Article 19(1)(a)’.
(cited from http://www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/media.htm)
The major paradox of this game of course is, there is no content code in place for the channels (which are threatening to self-regulate), while the Cable Act has all the necessary clauses about superstitious content and promotion of magic remedies. Are the channels free to air objectionable material, but it’s the cable guy who gets the stick for showing it (of course, right now it is one big unregulated delinquency fest for both the carriers and the channels)?
The Ministry of I&B has made specific efforts to implement the Cable Act by asking the state governments to constitute state and district level monitoring committees. It is not clear whether such committees are constituted, how often they meet and what transpires at the meetings. The Information wings are also required to give wide publicity to the existence of the committees to get feedback from the public. A crucial requirement however is left out - the need to conduct meetings regularly, to put the complaints received and detailed minutes of the meetings on the I&B Ministry’s web site.
Three, news content: During political crises, such as the Andhra/ Telangana protests, the electronic media loop the most disturbing bits of footage and repeat them several hundred times in the span of a single day, often without masking the ‘LIVE’ legend on the corner of the screen. Some of the most provocative statements from both sides of the argument are taken and run repeatedly. In the context of the lumpenised, criminalised politics of Andhra Pradesh, this is completely irresponsible as the lower level activists of all parties are on the streets to provoke and drive passions up rather than to engage in rational debate. As part of content regulation, this must be stopped. If the channels are short of fresh footage, it should be their problem to make the news interesting by other means and not by repeating a ‘two second’ act into a 24 hour event. The frenetic unthinking verbal onslaught of ‘live reports’ by untrained and combative reporters speeds up the befuddlement. ‘Live’ reports sound like the running commentary at the Deccan Derby without the language skills or the sense of purpose! Channels must also be prohibited from packaging news footage with music and sentimental songs and repeating the footage ad nauseum. Violation of the rules must be penalised with fines.
There are some regional channels which have specialised in lighting fires of conflict in league with the political vested interests, and then once the events take on a life of their own on the street, cash-in on it further. Some media houses no longer just report news. They make it happen, much of it by speculating about future actions (predicting violence; falsely attributing deaths to causes/events; anticipating and goading suicides).
The case in point is the much-publicised event of K Chandrasekhar Rao visiting TV9 to donate for their flood relief work. KCR was in political wilderness after the Lok Sabha elections. After his public donation, TV9 took the opportunity of putting him live on air (three anchors took turns) to hold forth on a range of issues from his personal habits to national politics. This coup on one channel was followed by other channels, each giving KCR the opportunity to answer phone-in queries and clarify his stand on matters public and private. The channels began giving extensive coverage to his proposed fast unto death and the rest, as they say, is history. Should the media houses be allowed to raise funds for relief? Not just TV9 but other channels and newspapers also did the same. What is the accountability and repercussions of this, and primarily is it the role of the media houses?
According to TV9’s own mission statement:
The news is a very powerful source of communication and during times of need it is necessary that the channel be a source of crucial information for those in need. Therefore, our disaster coverage will be designed to help people in distress, and all criticism and negative commentary will be withheld until after the incident has been sufficiently resolved.
Every word of the mission was violated during recent coverage of floods in Andhra Pradesh.
Electronic media today appear to be the ‘single biggest threat’ to the internal security of the country (to borrow a phrase from the PM) and its democratic traditions, by whipping up passions around issues that require sensitive handling. After 26/11 one would have thought the state would have gotten its act together and come up with an independent media regulator to take charge of the media industry and bring it back on track. That was reason enough.
The commercial media operate and behave like hardcore businesses, but when it comes to regulation, they wish to be treated with kid gloves as they claim to serve the values of free speech. The legendary Mexican peasant leader Emiliano Zapata described free market as ‘free foxes among free chickens.’ If those with economic muscle buy up advertising and news space for their own promotion and deliberately falsify the public discourse with media as willing vehicles profiteering from this process, does the media industry still believe it has the right to seek special privileges under the freedom of speech clause? More importantly, what should the moral authority of the state protect - the citizen’s right to ethical journalism or the media’s right to sell its soul?
The recent ‘will they, won’t they?’ saga of content regulation by I&B Ministry and the nervous response to the need for an independent regulator for broadcast industry that has teeth (unlike the Press Council of India) is a telling example of the state’s abdication of its moral responsibility to enforce a cleaner media environment. If you want to protect a modicum of the freedom of the chickens to a safe existence, you will need to restrain some freedoms of the foxes, especially since we are not in a jungle but claim to be a part of a ‘civilized democracy’.
The commercial media operate like hardcore businesses, but when it comes to regulation, they wish to be treated with kid gloves as they claim to serve the values of free speech. What should the moral authority of the state protect - the right of the citizen to ethical journalism or the right of the media to sell its soul?
Posted Friday, Dec 18 09:59:27, 2009 on The Hoot
One of the major recommendations of Akash Bharati, the comprehensive report that laid out the road map for the future of Indian broadcasting immediately after the Emergency, was to scrap the Broadcasting wing of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. The report argued that such a wing is anomalous in a democracy where media must operate as autonomous institutions, autonomous both from the market and the state. The report of course, emphasised the importance of a Broadcasting Council to regulate and to redress grievances.
When one looks at the planned inertia of the I&B Ministry that surpasses the moral inertia of the media industry, one is compelled to think that no ministry would have been better than a ministry that chooses to abdicate all its crucial regulatory obligations.
What are the regulatory obligations?
One, ownership: From the days of the First Press Commission, the ownership of media has been a matter of debate. Several commissions and expert groups have raised the problem of money from other businesses financing media enterprises primarily to generate a favourable policy environment and to promote friendly political actors to serve this purpose. Today, with the phenomenal and haphazard expansion of the media industry, it is clear that a large part of the investment into media is not just from the real economy as in the earlier phase, but from dubious sources - speculative finance, real estate and other parts of the ‘parallel’ economy. There is also a strong enmeshing of political interests in this. When a newspaper is started or when a television channel is started, is it not the responsibility of the licensing authority to examine the sources of finance and the antecedents of the promoters?
The state is constantly juggling with the FDI figures, is it 20%, should it be 26%, or is it better if it is 100%? Perhaps it is time to define what the colour of this money is, in addition to the percentage or whether it is from internal or external sources (is it ok if the investment comes from Indian mafia and not from overseas?). Is this like a ‘Christie’s auction?’ (or a Swiss bank account) that the state chooses to accept known fronts acting on behalf of ‘unknown’ backers? The recent statements of the Minister for I&B promising greater scrutiny of applications for news channel licenses should have been policy rather than an afterthought. And then, what about those licensees who are already ruling the airwaves? Media licenses are given to dubious business/political interests who are already under a cloud.
Two, advertising: Advertising has always been seen as a legitimate source of revenue for media. News to advertisement ratio/ price-page schedule is a dead idea, maligned and killed by the media industry. Today, glossies, newspapers, some news channels and movie channels, all carry disproportionate number of advertisements and without adequate gap between spells. Shouldn’t there be specific rules to define the amount of advertising, kind of advertising and the manner in which it is shown?
In the entertainment sector, channels routinely show paid promotional programming for building hype about some films, often by way of discussion programmes on the issues in a film with the stars from the films participating. The half an hour slots that promote hotels, stores and other commercial establishments that are obviously sponsored by the owners are shown without clarifying that the programming is paid for. The problem in such cases is, the viewer does not know that the praise heaped on the films or establishments is not neutral/fair judgement of the channel. Shouldn’t there be mandatory disclaimer next to the station logo that the programme is paid for?
Today, the arena for product and corporate promotion is not confined to advertising space alone, but has infiltrated the news columns. The latest manifestation of this phenomenon is the rampant virus of ?paid news’ during elections. But the malaise is so wide spread that news gathering in normal times over the last several years is also being done for some monetary or other consideration and rarely ever on the merit of the event or issue. This is widely known and managed by those who seek publicity. Manufactured celebrities and dubious talent abound on the best channels and newspapers. A politician’s mediocre poetry here, a pathetic designer line from a celebrity there, is all part of the fare. There is a conspiracy of silence about this as well, as it was about ‘paid news’. The Unions of Journalists are helpless in dealing with this as the culprits are from among their own ranks. Should there be some form of registration of practitioners by an independent, professional Media Council (like the Bar Council or the Medical Council) with the threat of deregistration for unethical practices?
As far as the pay channels are concerned, two other important issues need to be debated:
1. Some paid entertainment channels earn subscription revenues and go on to advertise on the channels far in excess of the 12 minutes per hour limit (an unwritten rule followed by channels in general). The movie watching experience of the viewer is of no particular concern to the channels. The viewer is paying directly (through subscription) and indirectly (by watching ads) for the same content and is forced to accept poor quality viewing experience to accommodate the channels’ desire to make more money. Any one who has attempted to watch a two and a half hour feature film on TV will vouch for this. It would take nothing less than four hours or more to watch.
The Television Without Frontiers Directive adopted by EEC and the UK limit advertising to 20% or (12 minutes) in any clock hour. The Directive also defines the number and nature of breaks in programmes: a) in films, news and current affairs programmes, and documentaries breaks should be limited to one for every period of 30 minutes; b) and children’s programmes, one break is allowed only in a programme of more than 30 minutes duration. The TWF states that ?in order that the interests of the consumers and TV viewers are fully protected, it is essential for television advertising to be subject to a certain number of minimum rules and standards?? Since 1950s UK also has the system of pre-viewing and approving all advertising shown on broadcast television. No such worldview seems to prevail in India.
2. The channels promote magic remedies like lucky stones and astrological solutions that clearly violate the Cable Act and also the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act. Some of these ads run close to five minutes at a time and are being routinely shown on television channels.
‘In Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India the Supreme Court was faced with the question as to whether the Drug and Magic Remedies Act, which put restrictions on the advertisements of drugs in certain cases and prohibited advertisements of drugs having magic qualities for curing diseases, was valid as it curbed the freedom of speech and expression of a person by imposing restrictions on advertisements. The Supreme Court held that, an advertisement is no doubt a form of speech and expression but every advertisement is not a matter dealing with the expression of ideas and hence advertisement of a commercial nature cannot fall within the concept of Article 19(1)(a)’.
(cited from http://www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/media.htm)
The major paradox of this game of course is, there is no content code in place for the channels (which are threatening to self-regulate), while the Cable Act has all the necessary clauses about superstitious content and promotion of magic remedies. Are the channels free to air objectionable material, but it’s the cable guy who gets the stick for showing it (of course, right now it is one big unregulated delinquency fest for both the carriers and the channels)?
The Ministry of I&B has made specific efforts to implement the Cable Act by asking the state governments to constitute state and district level monitoring committees. It is not clear whether such committees are constituted, how often they meet and what transpires at the meetings. The Information wings are also required to give wide publicity to the existence of the committees to get feedback from the public. A crucial requirement however is left out - the need to conduct meetings regularly, to put the complaints received and detailed minutes of the meetings on the I&B Ministry’s web site.
Three, news content: During political crises, such as the Andhra/ Telangana protests, the electronic media loop the most disturbing bits of footage and repeat them several hundred times in the span of a single day, often without masking the ‘LIVE’ legend on the corner of the screen. Some of the most provocative statements from both sides of the argument are taken and run repeatedly. In the context of the lumpenised, criminalised politics of Andhra Pradesh, this is completely irresponsible as the lower level activists of all parties are on the streets to provoke and drive passions up rather than to engage in rational debate. As part of content regulation, this must be stopped. If the channels are short of fresh footage, it should be their problem to make the news interesting by other means and not by repeating a ‘two second’ act into a 24 hour event. The frenetic unthinking verbal onslaught of ‘live reports’ by untrained and combative reporters speeds up the befuddlement. ‘Live’ reports sound like the running commentary at the Deccan Derby without the language skills or the sense of purpose! Channels must also be prohibited from packaging news footage with music and sentimental songs and repeating the footage ad nauseum. Violation of the rules must be penalised with fines.
There are some regional channels which have specialised in lighting fires of conflict in league with the political vested interests, and then once the events take on a life of their own on the street, cash-in on it further. Some media houses no longer just report news. They make it happen, much of it by speculating about future actions (predicting violence; falsely attributing deaths to causes/events; anticipating and goading suicides).
The case in point is the much-publicised event of K Chandrasekhar Rao visiting TV9 to donate for their flood relief work. KCR was in political wilderness after the Lok Sabha elections. After his public donation, TV9 took the opportunity of putting him live on air (three anchors took turns) to hold forth on a range of issues from his personal habits to national politics. This coup on one channel was followed by other channels, each giving KCR the opportunity to answer phone-in queries and clarify his stand on matters public and private. The channels began giving extensive coverage to his proposed fast unto death and the rest, as they say, is history. Should the media houses be allowed to raise funds for relief? Not just TV9 but other channels and newspapers also did the same. What is the accountability and repercussions of this, and primarily is it the role of the media houses?
According to TV9’s own mission statement:
The news is a very powerful source of communication and during times of need it is necessary that the channel be a source of crucial information for those in need. Therefore, our disaster coverage will be designed to help people in distress, and all criticism and negative commentary will be withheld until after the incident has been sufficiently resolved.
Every word of the mission was violated during recent coverage of floods in Andhra Pradesh.
Electronic media today appear to be the ‘single biggest threat’ to the internal security of the country (to borrow a phrase from the PM) and its democratic traditions, by whipping up passions around issues that require sensitive handling. After 26/11 one would have thought the state would have gotten its act together and come up with an independent media regulator to take charge of the media industry and bring it back on track. That was reason enough.
The commercial media operate and behave like hardcore businesses, but when it comes to regulation, they wish to be treated with kid gloves as they claim to serve the values of free speech. The legendary Mexican peasant leader Emiliano Zapata described free market as ‘free foxes among free chickens.’ If those with economic muscle buy up advertising and news space for their own promotion and deliberately falsify the public discourse with media as willing vehicles profiteering from this process, does the media industry still believe it has the right to seek special privileges under the freedom of speech clause? More importantly, what should the moral authority of the state protect - the citizen’s right to ethical journalism or the media’s right to sell its soul?
The recent ‘will they, won’t they?’ saga of content regulation by I&B Ministry and the nervous response to the need for an independent regulator for broadcast industry that has teeth (unlike the Press Council of India) is a telling example of the state’s abdication of its moral responsibility to enforce a cleaner media environment. If you want to protect a modicum of the freedom of the chickens to a safe existence, you will need to restrain some freedoms of the foxes, especially since we are not in a jungle but claim to be a part of a ‘civilized democracy’.
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Hospitals and the Political Farce in Andhra Pradesh
Hospitals and the Political Farce in Andhra Pradesh
Out here in Andhra Pradesh, we are living through life changing times. From the 9th of December 2009, when the central government announced its decision to initiate the process for the formation of Telangana state, neither the politicians nor the media have had a breather.
While the Telangana protests subsided instantly, several of the political parties that have openly promised Telangana during the recent Lok Sabha elections have burnt their boats and are hitching their political fortunes to the integration bandwagon. The political parties like Telugu Desam and Prajarayam do not see their long-term future wholly in Telangana as their social base is in Andhra but their economic interests are in Telangana. The social base is essential for their electoral fortunes which they cannot afford to alienate. Some of the Congress bigwigs are not immune to this either. This political dilemma and the desperation to secure their investments in Telangana is manifesting in a political farce that has not been witnessed in the state in a long time.
The latest is the antics of the Congress MP from Vijayawada, Lagadapati Rajagopal (LR), whose family enterprise Lanco runs power projects, infrastructure projects and owns hundreds of acres of land around Hyderabad. He has been vociferous in his opposition to the demand for separate state for Telangana and had run-ins with the activists before the latest series of incidents. After the central Home Minister’s announcement of statehood for Telangana, Lagadapati threatened to go on hunger strike a la K Chadrasekhar Rao (KCR). LR sat on fast, was put in a hospital in Vijayawada, but insisted on being treated at NIMS in Hyderabad, the same hospital where KCR was kept under arrest while on fast. When the state refused, anticipating trouble, he walked out of the Vijayawada hospital in full view of the 200-odd policemen and disappeared for several hours in a SUV to surface at NIMS in an auto rickshaw. He sprinted into the hospital with the police and TV cameras chasing him and got into a bed in the ICU!
Through out this ridiculous drama, the television channels were looping the footage of the man running into the hospital and lying in the ICU, without really asking the questions that arise in the minds of the public – there was utter chaos at the Vijayawada hospital, then at NIMS with activists and politicians descending on the place unmindful of the ordinary patients who are there for treatment. What happens to the other patients and emergency services when such gross misuse of a public utility is not only tolerated but found entertaining both by politicians and the media? Every celebrity scamster, politician, accused, today checks in to a hospital to avoid arrest. In the process, the medical profession appears to be deeply complicit in entertaining this gross abuse. What is the integrity of a doctor who shields an accused and gives false medical reports? Is the job of the media over, by just reporting what the doctors say …. Not just reporting but repeatedly scrolling alarmist reports about the condition of some politician or the other who is leveraging this as a strategy? Is this not also a medical ethics issue?
For instance, NIMS sheltered actor Balakrishna when he shot and injured two people in his house. His fans arrived from all over the state, daring the state to take any action. The doctors went on air giving health updates to the media, all the time sheltering the actor. NIMS had several celebrity patients like Ramalinga Raju of Satyam and KCR himself. There are several politicians on fast unto death in the Andhra region today, whose health the doctors are characterising as deteriorating to the media. In this process, is the medical profession being deeply politicised to give politically correct medical assessments? The other fall out is on the ordinary patient who has difficulty getting fair services at normal times, and can hope for very little in such chaotic times.
The media instead of questioning the misuse of hospitals as political battlegrounds descend on the hospitals to get exclusive footage for their channels. The extreme inconvenience caused by the presence of both the media and the politicians remains unaddressed. How essential is it to chase Lagadapati into the ICU? One did not see a single channel question why a man who can sprint into the hospital needs intensive care. Intensive care signifies life and death for anxious families. How can someone get into a hospital bypassing the security (which was nowhere to be seen - in a Hyderabad which saw serial bombings by terrorists), without being examined by a doctor and being formally admitted to ICU? Can an ordinary person sprint into the ICU of a hospital without the intervention of the medical experts? Under whose care was he admitted? What tests were recommended? The channels kept looping the footage and the anchors went on to discuss the antics of the politician with an indulgent smile, while the impact of this on people who are at the hospital for genuine reasons is not even an issue. The presence of the media, instead of making the hospital administration watch its step, seems to encourage it to host ‘celebrities’.
The net result of this rash of fasts by sundry politicians across the state, and the uncritical media reports about them, appears to have completely trivialised the issue of statehood to Telangana. The issue has been on a slow burn for over 50 years with several genuine problems that need addressing. It is a historic occasion that needs a critical and rational debate about how best to take it forward. The only channel that appears to have caught the mood of the moment is HMTV which brought together activists and intellectuals from all walks of life for an extensive debate on the issue. TV9 too has been airing longish interviews/call-in programmes with politicians like KCR, Undavalli Arun Kumar and Jayaprakash Narayan. The really entertaining programme continues to be the political spoof run by TV9 called ‘Evari gola varidi”
Looking at the political scenario in Andhra Pradesh, one wonders what would happen if there is no coverage for some of the political activities that are cropping up across the state. One has repeatedly seen a handful of people burning effigies and screaming into the cameras on tight shots and creating a false picture of the public mood. Five minutes after the event, there is no one at the scene of action. This convenience of television coverage that magnifies small events has made long-term, sustained building up of grass roots opinion unnecessary. Today it is ‘hit and run’ activism that suffices and gets the maximum mileage and instant public and policy responses. The new politician seems to understand this game too well. Now it is for the media to resist this, if it wishes to serve public interest.
Out here in Andhra Pradesh, we are living through life changing times. From the 9th of December 2009, when the central government announced its decision to initiate the process for the formation of Telangana state, neither the politicians nor the media have had a breather.
While the Telangana protests subsided instantly, several of the political parties that have openly promised Telangana during the recent Lok Sabha elections have burnt their boats and are hitching their political fortunes to the integration bandwagon. The political parties like Telugu Desam and Prajarayam do not see their long-term future wholly in Telangana as their social base is in Andhra but their economic interests are in Telangana. The social base is essential for their electoral fortunes which they cannot afford to alienate. Some of the Congress bigwigs are not immune to this either. This political dilemma and the desperation to secure their investments in Telangana is manifesting in a political farce that has not been witnessed in the state in a long time.
The latest is the antics of the Congress MP from Vijayawada, Lagadapati Rajagopal (LR), whose family enterprise Lanco runs power projects, infrastructure projects and owns hundreds of acres of land around Hyderabad. He has been vociferous in his opposition to the demand for separate state for Telangana and had run-ins with the activists before the latest series of incidents. After the central Home Minister’s announcement of statehood for Telangana, Lagadapati threatened to go on hunger strike a la K Chadrasekhar Rao (KCR). LR sat on fast, was put in a hospital in Vijayawada, but insisted on being treated at NIMS in Hyderabad, the same hospital where KCR was kept under arrest while on fast. When the state refused, anticipating trouble, he walked out of the Vijayawada hospital in full view of the 200-odd policemen and disappeared for several hours in a SUV to surface at NIMS in an auto rickshaw. He sprinted into the hospital with the police and TV cameras chasing him and got into a bed in the ICU!
Through out this ridiculous drama, the television channels were looping the footage of the man running into the hospital and lying in the ICU, without really asking the questions that arise in the minds of the public – there was utter chaos at the Vijayawada hospital, then at NIMS with activists and politicians descending on the place unmindful of the ordinary patients who are there for treatment. What happens to the other patients and emergency services when such gross misuse of a public utility is not only tolerated but found entertaining both by politicians and the media? Every celebrity scamster, politician, accused, today checks in to a hospital to avoid arrest. In the process, the medical profession appears to be deeply complicit in entertaining this gross abuse. What is the integrity of a doctor who shields an accused and gives false medical reports? Is the job of the media over, by just reporting what the doctors say …. Not just reporting but repeatedly scrolling alarmist reports about the condition of some politician or the other who is leveraging this as a strategy? Is this not also a medical ethics issue?
For instance, NIMS sheltered actor Balakrishna when he shot and injured two people in his house. His fans arrived from all over the state, daring the state to take any action. The doctors went on air giving health updates to the media, all the time sheltering the actor. NIMS had several celebrity patients like Ramalinga Raju of Satyam and KCR himself. There are several politicians on fast unto death in the Andhra region today, whose health the doctors are characterising as deteriorating to the media. In this process, is the medical profession being deeply politicised to give politically correct medical assessments? The other fall out is on the ordinary patient who has difficulty getting fair services at normal times, and can hope for very little in such chaotic times.
The media instead of questioning the misuse of hospitals as political battlegrounds descend on the hospitals to get exclusive footage for their channels. The extreme inconvenience caused by the presence of both the media and the politicians remains unaddressed. How essential is it to chase Lagadapati into the ICU? One did not see a single channel question why a man who can sprint into the hospital needs intensive care. Intensive care signifies life and death for anxious families. How can someone get into a hospital bypassing the security (which was nowhere to be seen - in a Hyderabad which saw serial bombings by terrorists), without being examined by a doctor and being formally admitted to ICU? Can an ordinary person sprint into the ICU of a hospital without the intervention of the medical experts? Under whose care was he admitted? What tests were recommended? The channels kept looping the footage and the anchors went on to discuss the antics of the politician with an indulgent smile, while the impact of this on people who are at the hospital for genuine reasons is not even an issue. The presence of the media, instead of making the hospital administration watch its step, seems to encourage it to host ‘celebrities’.
The net result of this rash of fasts by sundry politicians across the state, and the uncritical media reports about them, appears to have completely trivialised the issue of statehood to Telangana. The issue has been on a slow burn for over 50 years with several genuine problems that need addressing. It is a historic occasion that needs a critical and rational debate about how best to take it forward. The only channel that appears to have caught the mood of the moment is HMTV which brought together activists and intellectuals from all walks of life for an extensive debate on the issue. TV9 too has been airing longish interviews/call-in programmes with politicians like KCR, Undavalli Arun Kumar and Jayaprakash Narayan. The really entertaining programme continues to be the political spoof run by TV9 called ‘Evari gola varidi”
Looking at the political scenario in Andhra Pradesh, one wonders what would happen if there is no coverage for some of the political activities that are cropping up across the state. One has repeatedly seen a handful of people burning effigies and screaming into the cameras on tight shots and creating a false picture of the public mood. Five minutes after the event, there is no one at the scene of action. This convenience of television coverage that magnifies small events has made long-term, sustained building up of grass roots opinion unnecessary. Today it is ‘hit and run’ activism that suffices and gets the maximum mileage and instant public and policy responses. The new politician seems to understand this game too well. Now it is for the media to resist this, if it wishes to serve public interest.
Monday, 21 December 2009
Planned Inertia
Planned Inertia
One of the major recommendations of Akash Bharati, the comprehensive report that laid out the road map for the future of Indian broadcasting immediately after the Emergency, is to scrap the Broadcasting wing of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. The report argued that such a wing is anomalous in a democracy where media must operate as autonomous institutions, autonomous both from the market and the state. The report of course, emphasised the importance of a Broadcasting Council to regulate and to redress grievances.
When one looks at the planned inertia of the I&B Ministry that surpasses the moral inertia of the media industry, one is compelled to think that no ministry would have been better than a ministry that chooses to abdicate all its crucial regulatory obligations.
What are the regulatory obligations?
One, ownership: From the days of the First Press Commission, the ownership of media has been a matter of debate. Several commissions and expert groups have raised the problem of money from other businesses financing media enterprises primarily to generate a favourable policy environment and to promote friendly political actors to serve this purpose. Today, with the phenomenal and haphazard expansion of the media industry, it is clear that a large part of the investment into media is not just from the real economy as in the earlier phase, but from dubious sources – speculative finance, real estate and other parts of the ‘parallel’ economy. There is also a strong enmeshing of political interests in this. When a newspaper is started or when a television channel is started, is it not the responsibility of the licensing authority to examine the sources of finance and the antecedents of the promoters?
The state is constantly juggling with the FDI figures, is it 20%, should it be 26%, or is it better if it is 100%? Perhaps it is time to define what the colour of this money is, in addition to the percentage or whether it is from internal or external sources (is it ok if the investment comes from Indian mafia and not from overseas?). Is this like a ‘Christie’s auction’ (or a Swiss bank account) that the state chooses to accept known fronts acting on behalf of ‘unknown’ backers? The recent statements of the Minister for I&B promising greater scrutiny of applications for news channel licenses should have been policy rather than an after thought. And then, what about those licensees who are already ruling the airwaves? Media licenses are given to dubious business/political interests who are already under a cloud.
Two, advertising: Advertising has always been seen as a legitimate source of revenue for media. News to advertisement ratio/ price-page schedule is a dead idea, maligned and killed by the media industry. Today, glossies, newspapers, some news channels and movie channels, all carry disproportionate number of advertisements and without adequate gap between spells. Shouldn’t there be specific rules to define the amount of advertising, kind of advertising and the manner in which it is shown?
In the entertainment sector, channels routinely show paid promotional programming for building hype about some films, often by way of discussion programmes on the issues in a film with the stars from the films participating. The half an hour slots that promote hotels, stores and other commercial establishments that are obviously sponsored by the owners are shown without clarifying that the programming is paid for. The problem in such cases is, the viewer does not know that the praise heaped on the films or establishments is not neutral/fair judgement of the channel. Shouldn’t there be mandatory disclaimer next to the station logo that the programme is paid for?
Today, the arena for product and corporate promotion is not confined to advertising space alone, but has infiltrated the news columns. The latest manifestation of this phenomenon is the rampant virus of ‘paid news’ during elections. But the malaise is so wide spread that news gathering in normal times over the last several years is also being done for some monetary or other consideration and rarely ever on the merit of the event or issue. This is widely known and managed by those who seek publicity. False celebrities and dubious talent abound on the best channels and newspapers. A politician’s mediocre poetry here, a pathetic designer line from a celebrity there, is all part of the fare. There is a conspiracy of silence about this as well, as it was about ‘paid news’. The Unions of Journalists are helpless in dealing with this as the culprits are from among their own ranks. Should there be some form of registration of practitioners by an independent, professional Media Council (like the Bar Council or the Medical Council) with the threat of deregistration for unethical practices?
As far as the pay channels are concerned, two other important issues need to be debated:
1. Some paid entertainment channels earn subscription revenues and go on to advertise on the channels far in excess of the 12 minutes per hour limit (an unwritten rule followed by channels in general). The movie watching experience of the viewer is of no particular concern to the channels. The viewer is paying directly (through subscription) and indirectly (by watching ads) for the same content and is forced to accept poor quality viewing experience to accommodate the channels’ desire to make more money. Any one who has attempted to watch a two and a half hour feature film on TV will vouch for this. It would take nothing less than four hours or more to watch.
The Television Without Frontiers Directive adopted by EEC and the UK limit advertising to 20% or (12 minutes) in any clock hour. The Directive also defines the number and nature of breaks in programmes – a) in films, news and current affairs programmes, and documentaries breaks should be limited to one for every period of 30 minutes; b) and children’s programmes, one break is allowed only in a programme of more than 30 minutes duration. The TWF states that ‘in order that the interests of the consumers and TV viewers are fully protected, it is essential for television advertising to be subject to a certain number of minimum rules and standards…’ Since 1950s UK also has the system of pre-viewing and approving all advertising shown on broadcast television. No such worldview seems to prevail in India.
2. The channels promote magic remedies like lucky stones and astrological solutions that clearly violate the Cable Act and also the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act. Some of these ads run close to five minutes at a time and are being routinely shown on television channels.
“In Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India the Supreme Court was faced with the question as to whether the Drug and Magic Remedies Act, which put restrictions on the advertisements of drugs in certain cases and prohibited advertisements of drugs having magic qualities for curing diseases, was valid as it curbed the freedom of speech and expression of a person by imposing restrictions on advertisements. The Supreme Court held that, an advertisement is no doubt a form of speech and expression but every advertisement is not a matter dealing with the expression of ideas and hence advertisement of a commercial nature cannot fall within the concept of Article 19(1)(a)”. (cited from http://www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/media.htm)
The major paradox of this game of course is, there is no content code in place for the channels (which are threatening to self-regulate), while the Cable Act has all the necessary clauses about superstitious content and promotion of magic remedies. Are the channels free to air objectionable material, but it’s the cable guy who gets the stick for showing it (of course, right now it is one big unregulated delinquency fest for both the carriers and the channels)?.
The Ministry of I&B has made specific efforts to implement the Cable Act by asking the state governments to constitute state and district level monitoring committees. It is not clear whether such committees are constituted, how often they meet and what transpires at the meetings. The Information wings are also required to give wide publicity to the existence of the committees to get feedback from the public. A crucial requirement however is left out – the need to conduct meetings regularly, to put the complaints received and detailed minutes of the meetings on the I&B Ministry’s web site.
Three, news content: During political crises, such as the Andhra/ Telangana protests, the electronic media loop the most disturbing bits of footage and repeat them several hundred times in the span of a single day, often without masking the “LIVE” legend on the corner of the screen. Some of the most provocative statements from both sides of the argument are taken and run repeatedly. In the context of the lumpenised, criminalised politics of Andhra Pradesh, this is completely irresponsible as the lower level activists of all parties are on the streets to provoke and drive passions up rather than to engage in rational debate. As part of content regulation, this must be stopped. If the channels are short of fresh footage, it should be their problem to make the news interesting by other means and not by repeating a ‘two second’ act into a 24 hour event. The frenetic unthinking verbal onslaught of ‘live reports’ by untrained and combative reporters speeds up the befuddlement. ‘Live’ reports sound like the running commentary at the Deccan Derby without the language skills or the sense of purpose! Channels must also be prohibited from packaging news footage with music and sentimental songs and repeating the footage ad nauseum. Violation of the rules must be penalised with fines.
There are some regional channels which have specialised in lighting fires of conflict in league with the political vested interests, and then once the events take on a life of their own on the street, cash-in on it further. Some media houses no longer just report news. They make it happen, much of it by speculating about future actions (predicting violence; falsely attributing deaths to causes/events; anticipating and goading suicides).
The case in point is the much-publicised event of K Chandrasekhar Rao visiting TV9 to donate for their flood relief work. KCR was in political wilderness after the Lok Sabha elections. After his public donation, TV9 took the opportunity of putting him live on air (three anchors took turns) to hold forth on a range of issues from his personal habits to national politics. This coup on one channel was followed by other channels, each giving KCR the opportunity to answer phone-in queries and clarify his stand on matters public and private. The channels began giving extensive coverage to his proposed fast unto death and the rest, as they say, is history. Should the media houses be allowed to raise funds and relief? Not just TV9 but other channels and newspapers also did the same. What is the accountability and repercussions of this, and primarily is it the role of the media houses?
According to TV9’s own mission statement:
Electronic media today appear to be the ‘single biggest threat’ to the internal security of the country (to borrow a phrase from the PM) and its democratic traditions, by whipping up passions around issues that require sensitive handling.
After 26/11 one would have thought the state would have gotten its act together and come up with an independent media regulator to take charge of the media industry and bring it back on track. That was reason enough.
The commercial media operate and behave like hardcore businesses, but when it comes to regulation, they wish to be treated with kid gloves as they claim to serve the values of free speech. The legendary Mexican peasant leader Emiliano Zapata described free market as ‘free foxes among free chickens.’ If those with economic muscle buy up advertising and news space for their own promotion and deliberately falsify the public discourse with media as willing vehicles profiteering from this process, does the media industry still believe it has the right to seek special privileges under the freedom of speech clause? More importantly, what should the moral authority of the state protect - the citizen’s right to ethical journalism or the media’s right to sell its soul?
The recent ‘will they, won’t they’ saga of content regulation by I&B Ministry and the nervous response to the need for an independent regulator for broadcast industry that has teeth (unlike the Press Council of India) is a telling example of the state’s abdication of its moral responsibility to enforce a cleaner media environment. If you want to protect a modicum of the freedom of the chickens to a safe existence, you will need to restrain some freedoms of the foxes, especially since we are not in a jungle but claim to be a part of a ‘civilized democracy’.
One of the major recommendations of Akash Bharati, the comprehensive report that laid out the road map for the future of Indian broadcasting immediately after the Emergency, is to scrap the Broadcasting wing of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. The report argued that such a wing is anomalous in a democracy where media must operate as autonomous institutions, autonomous both from the market and the state. The report of course, emphasised the importance of a Broadcasting Council to regulate and to redress grievances.
When one looks at the planned inertia of the I&B Ministry that surpasses the moral inertia of the media industry, one is compelled to think that no ministry would have been better than a ministry that chooses to abdicate all its crucial regulatory obligations.
What are the regulatory obligations?
One, ownership: From the days of the First Press Commission, the ownership of media has been a matter of debate. Several commissions and expert groups have raised the problem of money from other businesses financing media enterprises primarily to generate a favourable policy environment and to promote friendly political actors to serve this purpose. Today, with the phenomenal and haphazard expansion of the media industry, it is clear that a large part of the investment into media is not just from the real economy as in the earlier phase, but from dubious sources – speculative finance, real estate and other parts of the ‘parallel’ economy. There is also a strong enmeshing of political interests in this. When a newspaper is started or when a television channel is started, is it not the responsibility of the licensing authority to examine the sources of finance and the antecedents of the promoters?
The state is constantly juggling with the FDI figures, is it 20%, should it be 26%, or is it better if it is 100%? Perhaps it is time to define what the colour of this money is, in addition to the percentage or whether it is from internal or external sources (is it ok if the investment comes from Indian mafia and not from overseas?). Is this like a ‘Christie’s auction’ (or a Swiss bank account) that the state chooses to accept known fronts acting on behalf of ‘unknown’ backers? The recent statements of the Minister for I&B promising greater scrutiny of applications for news channel licenses should have been policy rather than an after thought. And then, what about those licensees who are already ruling the airwaves? Media licenses are given to dubious business/political interests who are already under a cloud.
Two, advertising: Advertising has always been seen as a legitimate source of revenue for media. News to advertisement ratio/ price-page schedule is a dead idea, maligned and killed by the media industry. Today, glossies, newspapers, some news channels and movie channels, all carry disproportionate number of advertisements and without adequate gap between spells. Shouldn’t there be specific rules to define the amount of advertising, kind of advertising and the manner in which it is shown?
In the entertainment sector, channels routinely show paid promotional programming for building hype about some films, often by way of discussion programmes on the issues in a film with the stars from the films participating. The half an hour slots that promote hotels, stores and other commercial establishments that are obviously sponsored by the owners are shown without clarifying that the programming is paid for. The problem in such cases is, the viewer does not know that the praise heaped on the films or establishments is not neutral/fair judgement of the channel. Shouldn’t there be mandatory disclaimer next to the station logo that the programme is paid for?
Today, the arena for product and corporate promotion is not confined to advertising space alone, but has infiltrated the news columns. The latest manifestation of this phenomenon is the rampant virus of ‘paid news’ during elections. But the malaise is so wide spread that news gathering in normal times over the last several years is also being done for some monetary or other consideration and rarely ever on the merit of the event or issue. This is widely known and managed by those who seek publicity. False celebrities and dubious talent abound on the best channels and newspapers. A politician’s mediocre poetry here, a pathetic designer line from a celebrity there, is all part of the fare. There is a conspiracy of silence about this as well, as it was about ‘paid news’. The Unions of Journalists are helpless in dealing with this as the culprits are from among their own ranks. Should there be some form of registration of practitioners by an independent, professional Media Council (like the Bar Council or the Medical Council) with the threat of deregistration for unethical practices?
As far as the pay channels are concerned, two other important issues need to be debated:
1. Some paid entertainment channels earn subscription revenues and go on to advertise on the channels far in excess of the 12 minutes per hour limit (an unwritten rule followed by channels in general). The movie watching experience of the viewer is of no particular concern to the channels. The viewer is paying directly (through subscription) and indirectly (by watching ads) for the same content and is forced to accept poor quality viewing experience to accommodate the channels’ desire to make more money. Any one who has attempted to watch a two and a half hour feature film on TV will vouch for this. It would take nothing less than four hours or more to watch.
The Television Without Frontiers Directive adopted by EEC and the UK limit advertising to 20% or (12 minutes) in any clock hour. The Directive also defines the number and nature of breaks in programmes – a) in films, news and current affairs programmes, and documentaries breaks should be limited to one for every period of 30 minutes; b) and children’s programmes, one break is allowed only in a programme of more than 30 minutes duration. The TWF states that ‘in order that the interests of the consumers and TV viewers are fully protected, it is essential for television advertising to be subject to a certain number of minimum rules and standards…’ Since 1950s UK also has the system of pre-viewing and approving all advertising shown on broadcast television. No such worldview seems to prevail in India.
2. The channels promote magic remedies like lucky stones and astrological solutions that clearly violate the Cable Act and also the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act. Some of these ads run close to five minutes at a time and are being routinely shown on television channels.
“In Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India the Supreme Court was faced with the question as to whether the Drug and Magic Remedies Act, which put restrictions on the advertisements of drugs in certain cases and prohibited advertisements of drugs having magic qualities for curing diseases, was valid as it curbed the freedom of speech and expression of a person by imposing restrictions on advertisements. The Supreme Court held that, an advertisement is no doubt a form of speech and expression but every advertisement is not a matter dealing with the expression of ideas and hence advertisement of a commercial nature cannot fall within the concept of Article 19(1)(a)”. (cited from http://www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/media.htm)
The major paradox of this game of course is, there is no content code in place for the channels (which are threatening to self-regulate), while the Cable Act has all the necessary clauses about superstitious content and promotion of magic remedies. Are the channels free to air objectionable material, but it’s the cable guy who gets the stick for showing it (of course, right now it is one big unregulated delinquency fest for both the carriers and the channels)?.
The Ministry of I&B has made specific efforts to implement the Cable Act by asking the state governments to constitute state and district level monitoring committees. It is not clear whether such committees are constituted, how often they meet and what transpires at the meetings. The Information wings are also required to give wide publicity to the existence of the committees to get feedback from the public. A crucial requirement however is left out – the need to conduct meetings regularly, to put the complaints received and detailed minutes of the meetings on the I&B Ministry’s web site.
Three, news content: During political crises, such as the Andhra/ Telangana protests, the electronic media loop the most disturbing bits of footage and repeat them several hundred times in the span of a single day, often without masking the “LIVE” legend on the corner of the screen. Some of the most provocative statements from both sides of the argument are taken and run repeatedly. In the context of the lumpenised, criminalised politics of Andhra Pradesh, this is completely irresponsible as the lower level activists of all parties are on the streets to provoke and drive passions up rather than to engage in rational debate. As part of content regulation, this must be stopped. If the channels are short of fresh footage, it should be their problem to make the news interesting by other means and not by repeating a ‘two second’ act into a 24 hour event. The frenetic unthinking verbal onslaught of ‘live reports’ by untrained and combative reporters speeds up the befuddlement. ‘Live’ reports sound like the running commentary at the Deccan Derby without the language skills or the sense of purpose! Channels must also be prohibited from packaging news footage with music and sentimental songs and repeating the footage ad nauseum. Violation of the rules must be penalised with fines.
There are some regional channels which have specialised in lighting fires of conflict in league with the political vested interests, and then once the events take on a life of their own on the street, cash-in on it further. Some media houses no longer just report news. They make it happen, much of it by speculating about future actions (predicting violence; falsely attributing deaths to causes/events; anticipating and goading suicides).
The case in point is the much-publicised event of K Chandrasekhar Rao visiting TV9 to donate for their flood relief work. KCR was in political wilderness after the Lok Sabha elections. After his public donation, TV9 took the opportunity of putting him live on air (three anchors took turns) to hold forth on a range of issues from his personal habits to national politics. This coup on one channel was followed by other channels, each giving KCR the opportunity to answer phone-in queries and clarify his stand on matters public and private. The channels began giving extensive coverage to his proposed fast unto death and the rest, as they say, is history. Should the media houses be allowed to raise funds and relief? Not just TV9 but other channels and newspapers also did the same. What is the accountability and repercussions of this, and primarily is it the role of the media houses?
According to TV9’s own mission statement:
The news is a very powerful source of communication and during times of need it is necessary that the channel be a source of crucial information for those in need. Therefore, our disaster coverage will be designed to help people in distress, and all criticism and negative commentary will be withheld until after the incident has been sufficiently resolved.Every word of the mission was violated during recent coverage of floods in Andhra Pradesh.
Electronic media today appear to be the ‘single biggest threat’ to the internal security of the country (to borrow a phrase from the PM) and its democratic traditions, by whipping up passions around issues that require sensitive handling.
After 26/11 one would have thought the state would have gotten its act together and come up with an independent media regulator to take charge of the media industry and bring it back on track. That was reason enough.
The commercial media operate and behave like hardcore businesses, but when it comes to regulation, they wish to be treated with kid gloves as they claim to serve the values of free speech. The legendary Mexican peasant leader Emiliano Zapata described free market as ‘free foxes among free chickens.’ If those with economic muscle buy up advertising and news space for their own promotion and deliberately falsify the public discourse with media as willing vehicles profiteering from this process, does the media industry still believe it has the right to seek special privileges under the freedom of speech clause? More importantly, what should the moral authority of the state protect - the citizen’s right to ethical journalism or the media’s right to sell its soul?
The recent ‘will they, won’t they’ saga of content regulation by I&B Ministry and the nervous response to the need for an independent regulator for broadcast industry that has teeth (unlike the Press Council of India) is a telling example of the state’s abdication of its moral responsibility to enforce a cleaner media environment. If you want to protect a modicum of the freedom of the chickens to a safe existence, you will need to restrain some freedoms of the foxes, especially since we are not in a jungle but claim to be a part of a ‘civilized democracy’.
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