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| Manufacturing consent: paid news in India
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Is capitalism or democracy to be defended? From New Delhi, Rajiv Ranjan
The emergence of paid news, especially evident in the coverage of Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in 2009, has sparked the debates on ethical dimensions of media. It also, in the largest democracy of the world, has undermined the citizen’s right to fair and free news, to choose its government, and thereby fails to reckon as fourth pillar of the government. The commercial interest of big ‘media houses’ driving the news channel and print media is degrading the once considered as balancing wheel of government, journalism.
The local newspaper in Mumbai, during Assembly polls, carried editorials favouring a candidate from a particular party. There seems, in the first instance, to be nothing wrong in carrying news about certain candidate. Ironically, the news items, in colour pages, repeated for two-three days and then it became subject of suspicions. And then, everything turned out in crystallised formats. It was not regular news items published by the newspaper, but was paid to carry the news to boost support base of the candidate. Election Commission of India permits party and candidates to advertise their agendas and seek support of peoples through newspaper advertisement, radio, television, etc. But there is definite a code of conduct to follow the process. Apparently, favoured news items, in support of particular candidates, were paid by those particular candidates to manufacture the consent in his/her favour. Thereby, rich candidates will easily out past comparatively poor candidates, in the ‘festival of democracy’.
Diluting the spirit of democracy
The paid news, ironically enough, is not a new phenomenon but was in practise for long time. Media covering positive news about certain goods/items of particular company was intend to fetch advertisement from the company. And there seems nothing wrong as long as it doesn’t harm the interests of customer and serves its basic objective of free and fair news. But recent episode vividly illustrates that media, like other institutions, has lost its credibility among people.
Deciphering the cause of paid news in India, Mrinal Pandey, Chairperson of the Prasar Bharati, argued that language papers have a reach that English dailies don’t, hence transgressions show up the most there. Neo-Marxist Gramsci, however, suggests that media propagate bourgeois ideas and maintains capitalist hegemony, acting in the interests of major corporations and media moguls. Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman in their Manufacturing Consent have indentified five filters through which news and political coverage are distorted by the media itself. Firstly, the business interest of owner companies. Secondly, a sensitivity to the views and concerns of advertisers and sponsors. Thirdly, the sourcing of news and information from ‘agents of power’ such as government and business backed think thanks. Fourthly, flack or pressure applied to journalists including threats and legal actions and finally, an unquestioning belief in the benefits of market and consumer capitalism.
Chomsky further emphasises the degree to which the mass media can subvert democracy. The Assembly polls, in India, explicitly are a fit case of subverting the democracy or manufacturing the consent in the favour of particular candidate. Outlook, an Indian weekly magazine, reports that Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit was approached by a news channel in New Delhi with a package to cover Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the East Delhi Constituency during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and similarly a Hindi newspaper offered for positive coverage. What is odd in this scenario? It is the media which is approaching the individual for paid news. And the reason is very simple. It is inevitable in the era of 24 hour news channel, entry of foreign media, revolution in information and communication technology, to the extent that has increased competition among media groups to cover news and, more importantly, raise its income to sustain in the market.
This was the win-win situation for both candidate and media. For candidate, if it was advertisement in the newspaper, it would have cost Rs 1.5 to 2 crore and thus exceeding the limit of election expenditure set by ECI. And for the media a means, though unethical, to sustain in the market.
Power politics
Author of this article very much agrees with Sainath on paid news that "goes hand in hand with the rise of corporate and money power in politics". Sainath concluded this on data collected by National Election Watch which portrays that an increase of 338 per cent in the average asset growth of re-contesting candidates for the recent Maharashtra polls. The average value of an MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) was Rs 4 crore, that of a re-elected MLA 4.6 crore, and of a re-elected Minister, Rs 4.9 crore. Of the 288 MLAs, 184 were crorepatis. Moreover, the average asset worth of a Lok Sabha MP is around Rs 51 million. That of a Union cabinet minister around Rs 76 million. The 64 members of the cabinet for whom data is available are worth over Rs 5 billion. The total net worth of all Lok Sabha MPs is around Rs 28 billion. (Sainath, P.: 2010). All these indicate that growing nexus between media and politicians to illicitly manufacture the consents, in the favour of particular candidate, and thereby preventing the voters to exercise their right to elect. It will, in long way, sabotage the prospering Indian democracy, alien to other neighbouring countries, and dilute the very foundation of parliamentary democracy to respect the choice of its citizens to elect the government in free and fair manner.
The Election Commission of India needs more constitutional power to formulate the regulations to curb this malpractice if it craves to fulfil its constitutional mandate to superintendence, direction and conduct of all the elections to Parliament and to the Legislature of every state in ‘free and fair manner’.
Ethics & Media
It became inevitable to restore the credibility of media among the masses. If media cannot revive and restore its image, at earlier date, it will hamper the prospect of Indian democracy, in long run, and media itself. Many former editors and civil society strongly criticised the paid news phenomena and advocated strict action towards editors and media involved in paid news tricks. B.G. Verghese, Former Editor and member of ethics committee constituted by Editors Guild to look into the matter of paid news, sadly says that "The media is not the fourth estate any more, it’s the first estate. The media has now become all-powerful". Although, the Editors Guild of India, an industry body representing senior media editors across the country, recognised the right to publish and broadcast advertisement on all over issues, subject to the voluntary advertising standards council code and the news broadcasting standards code, condemned the pernicious practice of publishing paid news. The Guild decries the unsavoury and unacceptable practice of some political parties and candidates offering payment for "news packages" to news media and its representatives to publish and telecast eulogising and misleading news reports on the political parties.
Vinod Sharma, political Editor of Hindustan Times, argues that Indian journalism is at a crossroads. When we shirk our basic duty of being the purveyors of facts in order to empower public opinion towards a more robust democracy, we commit the same crime as a parliamentarian who sells his or her right to ask questions for money. ‘Either we finish it or it finishes us. There will be no space, no scope for legitimate journalism if this process expands any further’, warns P. Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
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PhD Candidate in Chinese Studies, Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. M.A. in Politics with specialization in International Relations and M.Phil at the same university. |
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