Media should declare its business & political interests: Arvind Kejriwal

By Bodhi Shri

Anna Hazare’s historic fast accompanied with mass protest at Ramlila Maidan last year demanding Jan Lokpal as a sure recipe to stem all-pervading corruption in the country and a recent flash protest at India Gate after the Delhi gang-rape case in a moving bus, are two apt Indian examples to illustrate how social media can be used to build and sustain a five star movement. Only condition is that it should be complemented by main stream media especially the 24x7 TV making the protesting mob spectacle sensational. 

Founder of Aam Admi Party Arvind Kejriwal (4th from the left) regaled students of journalism by his side-splitters against corrupt politicians of India. He urged youth to not hate politics, but join it to change India.

The combined blistering heat of social media and TV was earlier felt by despots of the Middle East during the spring revolution it had created. The outcome was a few despots got dethroned. Arvind Kejriwal, a trusted former associate of Anna Hazare, is now experimenting with building a political outfit ‘Aam Admi Party’ to take on the corrupt Indian political system with the help of social media.  He is a craze among students these days.

It was a day of delight and positive stimulus for the students pursuing their 3-year BJMC course at the BLS Institute of Technology Management (Bahadurgarh, Haryana, when they got Kejriwal as the chief guest for their panel discussion on ‘Media as a Catalyst of Society’ on 21 February.  They found him a great regaler who kept them bursting into laughter by his side-splitters against corrupt politicians. At the outset he established his brand-equity by declaring he was an aam adami (common man) like any one of them or anyone in India.

What oppressed the countrymen most, he asked and gave the consensual answer--the corrupt politics, which is controlled by none other, but ‘your’ elected representatives.  He gave statistics of how many of them were facing heinous criminal charges in the courts of law. The highest law making body the Parliament, whose lower house Lok Sabha has 14 members facing charges of murder and 13 other charges of kidnapping. Seeing all this the youth today says—I hate politics. ‘No, this is wrong decision, you should not think like this. You need to participate in politics to change its character.’

Media should declare political and business interests

Sushil Aggarwal, chairman of BLS Education Society (Right) 

He qualified his praise for media as a roller coaster supporter of people’s cause, but most other times it remained blindfolded to the stark reality. He complimented media for taking Anna’s stir to every home, also the issue of women safety in Delhi. By doing so it proved it was with the people. It proved that it can act as catalyst. Even during the emergency in mid seventies it wasn’t neutral, and sided with people. But in general we find today a competition of sensationalism going on among media. Media covered an event only till it had some sensational value. He raised a pertinent question why certain media present certain things in a certain manner. ‘To maintain credibility, the biggest asset of any media, it should declare its business and political interests like how much share the FDI or the Big Business hold in its equity? People should know this. Why there should not be transparency in that.’   

Kejriwal limited his comments to the mainstream media and ignored fast emerging social media that poses a new challenge to the established one. Other panelists, viz. Vinod Varshney Editor of Lokayat, Dhiranjan Malvey OSD in Prasar Bharti, Vinod Arora, Chief Operational Officer of the ministry of information and broadcasting and Ratan Singh of Dainik Bhaskar, together built up a comprehensive picture of the media, including social media.

Dhiranjan explained the economic compulsions of media how without Rs 500 crore one cannot start and run a TV channel successfully with national footprints. He posed a question how anybody can expect media to act as a catalyst when the first worry of the owners remained to see their investment is not sunk. ‘This is a reality that private channels care more for their bottom-line.’ However, the internet media can afford to be free if it wants, as at least there are no such business compulsions involved in running it. Luckily, social media has also started attracting advertisements in good volumes, sometimes more than the conventional media, he informed.

FDI in media changed its character

Vinod Varshney emphasised that the character of Indian media got changed drastically since the FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) was allowed in media. He gave inkling of the times when the debate was raging whether to allow FDI or not in media. Many argued against allowing this as it would ruin the culture and value system of the country and media would become an agent to promote the western values, political and business interests. But a section, desperate as it was, not being able to compete with the monopoly national media, pressed for it. And now see the result--media is getting more and more attuned to western concerns, interests and values. 

It is promoting a consumerist culture which serves the business interests of the companies who produce related goods and services. To hook the rest of India fake sensationalism is offered. The media thus lately is becoming more and more damaging to the desirable values of liberalism, social welfare and concerns of masses.

Big corporate advertisers have over-controlled the media and as such the media does not remain a catalyst for the positive development of the society. This apart, the poor working conditions, including job security, is also taking its toll on the Indian media. The control of the editor on the editorial policy and content is now thing of the past. It is the business boss who decides what is good for the company as every quarter it looks forward to declaring growth in profits if it is a stock exchange listed company.  

Consumerist culture is being propagated to the loss of inclusive human culture which alone can cater to the general development and welfare of the society. He slammed journalist fraternity for not caring to go deeper into issues and develop sound understanding of them. Alibi that people want sensational stuff so only that should be offered, has become the rule. He urged the students to develop rational thinking and scientific outlook so that they can bust myths and not swayed by propaganda of various interest groups.

He termed social media more dynamic and more democratic, however many say that large part of it is propagandist. This media is being used mainly by various interest groups.

Vinod Arora gave a detailed history of how media developed and grew. Ratan Singh of Dainik Bhaskar told from his personal experience how difficult it was to get revealing stories published if they go against the business interests of the owners. Students of journalism may remain idealist till they are in the class room, but the missionary zeal gets evaporated soon once they join a media organisation as they have to invest all their energy to protect their jobs.