Journalism: What the hell has it got to be?

During the recently concluded assembly by-elections in Maharashtra, candidates literally bought pages in newspapers (not all of them) for hundreds of crores of rupees!

The culture of ‘coverage packages’ is not new to some part of the country. We had seen lots of instances of democracy being taken hostage by using muscle and money power in many north Indian states. For us in the South, booth capturing is something seen on screen or paper, but for people in the North it is real time experience.

Many social and democratic activists, writers, and the other section of newspapers that resisted being sold, are now up in arms against the section of media that joined hands with a bunch of social criminals to maliciously manipulate the public opinion, for a vulgarly huge amount of money.

If you are to completely blame some newspapers alone for breeding this kind of an outrageous culture, just wait till I remind you of something. I hope you remember the hardships Tarun Tejpal‘s Tehelka, an Indian weekly magazine, which began in 2000 as a news website, had to go through when it exposed a major corruption in defense procurement via a sting operation called Operation Westend. It was forced to close down temporarily due to hostile government action.
Tehelka was financially too weak to fund a long legal battle, and it exhausted what is available with it by doing so. Its staff had to face terrible police and government harassments. And later it had to depend on the money contributed by some readers to restart functioning.

In any part of the world, it is not uncommon to see working journalists being jailed and harassed by police at the behest of some political leaders for having written some articles against them. It was not long ago that Lasantha Wickramatunga, editor of Sunday Leader, Sri Lanka, wrote his own obituary before meeting with his anticipated death. He was killed by official military forces for writing articles about the torture of innocent Tamilians by Lankan army in the name of LTTE eradication.

Still, I believe it is the role of the media to keep the system clean and safe. But how far is it possible when some people from all sections ranging from ministers to police use their official powers to manipulate the same system in their favor? Have the media got any official power or privilege to confront the official influence these sections possess? Even the constitution of India does not bestow any special privilege upon the media. It is enjoying the same freedom of speech and expression which is enjoyed by all citizens in the country. Literally, the media is just a citizen without any extra privilege.

And now I will put forward two scenarios:
1.You tell the truth, and you will be terribly harassed before being taken into jail or killed.
2.You just tell what you are asked to tell by some ‘power seekers’, you will get filthy rich and your family ensured a safe and secure life.

I know you are still unable to buy these scenarios for face value. So let us just pray that the God give this unarmed media force a strong willpower to stand the tide of seductive black money.