Date:17/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/17/stories/2007111761241400.htm

National

Hold of market forces on media lamented

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Union Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi on Friday lamented the manner in which market forces had come to influence the media.

Addressing the National Press Day function organised by the Press Council of India here, the two were one in urging the media houses to introspect. Mr. Chatterjee said the marketing divisions of some newspapers were calling the shots on the editorial front, and news on the condition of the country was elbowed out by celebrity reporting.

As for television, the Speaker said the fierce competition for viewership and advertising was making some channels give up all scruples. While there was nothing antithetical in a channel or a newspaper being viewed as a profit-making venture, he expressed alarm at the growing number of media houses which see the “packaging of news” as an essential requirement to earn more money.

Mr. Dasmunsi said no longer could the government be accused of curbing press freedom. “The press is censored internally as managements, not editors, are calling the shots.”

Press Council Chairman Justice G. N. Ray said: “The freedom of expression must not become the business of expression.” He urged the media to be the “torch that shows the way and not the fire that destroys, although both give light.”