by Pradeep Mathur
News media in India faces a crisis of credibility. Gone are the days when our news media was known for its objectivity and a non-partisan approach, and its content taken as gospel truth by audiences. Today the content of news media, especially TV, is viewed with a degree of suspicion and disbelief, and journalists openly accused of dishonesty. Naturally it is a matter of great concern to all those who wish media well.
To understand the present state of drift in media let us try to look at the root of the problem. Mass media in India started developing at the beginning of the 19th century with the growth of our struggle for freedom from British rule. Mahatma Gandhi’s entry on the scene intensified the struggle for freedom and converted it into a mass movement. The movement needed mass media and saw the advent and growth of a Nationalist press. The Free Press Journal of Bombay, The Tribune of Lahore, The Hitvad of Nagpur, Amrit Bazar Patrika of Calcutta and National Herald of Lucknow besides a big number of India languages newspapers were born.
However, after we attained Independence, the Nationalist press lost the plot as the great communal divide and Partition left it clueless. It is this loss of plot that is responsible for most of the media- related problems that we face today. After Independence media gradually began losing its ideological commitment to the common man and transformed from a mission to a profession.
Though high on the spirit of nationalism and commitment to public service, the nationalist press was not necessarily high on professionalism. In fact true professionalism had touched only the fringe of nationalist newspapers. It was particularly true of the language press. Therefore, in the transition from mission to profession, Indian media first became a management tool in the hands of PR, advertising and communication personnel and then an instrument of the vested interests of big business and the political establishment. The spirit of idealism and commitment to the people’s cause was lost somewhere along the way.
The advent of TV and digital media has only strengthened this trend. TV made an entry in India more than two decades after the Independence. Initially it looked like living up to its promise to generate mass awareness but soon turned into a soap opera. In terms of range and audience, TV media has developed in a big way. Now there are nearly 900 channels in India whose total audience could easily be around 760 million.
The widespread criticism of TV that we see today is unfortunate. It has no doubt trivialized and sensationalized news and rendered it frivolous. Even worse, it is being charged with promoting fake news and becoming what is being derisively called as “godi” media. All this has greatly damaged the credibility of Indian media in general.
Any decline in the basic standards of TV journalism is understandably a matter of great concern. What is therefore needed is an objective and analytical understanding of the problem.
Running a private TV channel is a high cost business. In a highly competitive advertising market it is not easy to generate resources to run one and hence the mortality rate of private TV channels is very high. A large viewership, measured using a metric called TRP, improves the standing of a TV channel in the ad market.
Since an audience is the oxygen of mass media, TV channels have to cater to viewership that is quite diverse in its literacy levels. Most channels seem to tailor their content by making unjustifiable presumptions about their viewers’ discernment and knowledge. While on the programming side, we have vapid subjects like “Patal ki Seedi” and “Discovery of the Kitchen of Sita Mata”, on the news front, we have a totally partisan approach to suit vested interests of politics and business. The problem with this approach is that it looks down upon audiences. It presumes that the content that will appeal to them has to be dumbed-down.
For good content creation a proper understanding of societal structure and dynamics, right perception, a connection with ground reality and the right attitude is needed. This calls for good media and mass communication education and thorough professional training to counter short cuts to cheap programming for TRP. This needs hard work that will help us to be good content producers.
A thorough study of audience habits, behaviour and attitude is the need of the hour. We need to understand audience psyche well. Only this understanding will tell us how we can make the real issues of health, education, jobs and participatory development interesting to our audiences.
Therefore, our TV content creation should be done based on complete knowledge of what mass audience really needs and wishes to see, rather than what we think it needs. In short what is required is a paradigm shift in our approach to content creation. Only this will ensure that we regain the honour, prestige and credibility of media as an institution.
(Prof Pradeep Mathur is a veteran journalist, writer and former professor and Course Director at Indian Institute of Mass Communication. He is the Chief Editor of AlignIndia News Portal.)