Date:08/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/08/stories/2008050855000800.htm

New Delhi

“TV channels promoting dangerous culture”

Special Correspondent

Cut-throat competition for high TRP

Concern voiced at seminar organised by Rajasthan University
‘The tendency to glamorise news went against the principles of journalism’

JAIPUR: Speakers at a seminar on “TV news: Serious business or low-cost reality TV?” here on Wednesday said the cut-throat competition to get high TRP ratings and the ploys to sell products had pushed social concerns and ethics to the background in the electronic media.

Academicians, social activists and mass communication experts attending the two-day seminar felt that “trivialisation” of news presented on the television channels was distorting the social and moral values and promoting a “dangerous culture” that would shatter all norms of civil society.

The seminar was organised by Rajasthan University’s Centre for Mass Communication and Media Information and Communication Centre of India , New Delhi, in association with Fedric Ebert Stiftung (FES)-India. The sessions during the two days of the seminar threw light on different aspects such as credibility of TV news, unbridled commercialisation, element of entertainment in the news and trivialisation of news presentation.

While MICCI Director Nandini Sahai said the tendency to glamorise news went against the principles of journalism, columnist Manohar Prabhakar said the entertainment and horror sneaking into the TV news was the outcome of increasing competition.