The media plays a major role in Indian democracy as it is a strong medium of communication for the masses. As the fourth pillar of democracy, the media has always been seen as a public watchdog for sharing information and broadcasting news and facts in an honest way. Even though there are more than 800 operating television channels in India, it is observed that the north-eastern and southern belts of the country receive little coverage in the national media. Because there are more and more news channels, the quality of news is slowly going down, which is hurting the reputation of the media.
The majority of Indians prefer televised news as an acceptable medium of information. However, the news that they provide is far from reality in terms of the originality and authenticity of the news.
Particularly when alarming crises emerge in a country, it is often seen that the media telecasts a lot of fabricated news. For instance, regarding a natural calamity and its occurrences, the news channels are flooded with devastating stories of grief, loss of life, and emerging danger rather than focusing on stories of hope and survival. This in turn creates negative sentiment and a sense of fear among the citizens. On the other hand, it has been highlighted over time that many media houses do not prioritize verifying ethical and fact-based information and they instead sensitize the content for their breaking news and hype content with advertisements to gain TRP, adding to the company’s revenue.
If we look back to an era of fearless journalism in the 1900s, the media was regarded as a fair medium of communication, providing impartial information and presenting the facts. With the emergence of breaking news and an aggressive reporting culture, investigative journalism has gone behind the scenes, and the advent of yellow journalism with trivial stories began with little research and rumor-laden news in the form of information.
So what could be the possible solution to curb this problem and present verified information in the form of news to the public? The answer to this is independent journalism. As goes the saying “the pen is mightier than the sword,” today, the power of digital media booming today is creating a sense of awareness among the citizens by telecasting news with verified sources of information. Awareness should be incurred by viewers to identify which journalists propagate a one-sided view instead of identifying the key issues of a problem. In this way, you can tell if a news story is paid for by looking at whether it promotes ads, sponsors, or a certain group of people.
Independent journalism should be encouraged and supported because it tells the truth about our country and real-life problems without focusing on making money. We can do so by subscribing to their content on social media and supporting the news portals by sharing their content. Some examples of such initiatives are The Wire, Cobra Post, Quint, and many other such regional media houses that are marching ahead to create a future of impartial and fearless journalism.
Let’s create a fair economy by taking one step closer to demystifying pseudo-journalism and embracing the valiant power of the press.
