corruption in INDIAN media

On this blog, we have covered corruption in almost all aspects of life in India. A quick search showed that our media was not untouched by this malaise. Let us divide the media in two parts:
a. Successful and hence powerful.
b. Striving and hence weaker.
The former kind uses their perch to propagate their own agenda. We should make a strong distinction here. Pushing an agenda does not entail telling the truth. It involves providing a spin to the truth. The worst of this kind of reporting is done by the likes of Barkha Dutt. This Islamophile has a vision of India only Muslims and the brown sahibs can appreciate. In the beginning of the year, The Hindu published an e-document (which seems to have disappeared since), which mentioned the names of “Barkha Dutt” and “Vir Sanghvi” in connection with lobbying the Congress on behalf of DMK’s Kanimozhi for Ministerial berths. The references seem to follow a report from a website called Whispers in Corridors and based on what appear to be notes in an “Internal Report” summarizing telephone intercept conversations. To be accurate allegations and the rest of the pages in the electronic document are not directly substantiated nor are they authoritative on the authorship of the notes. There also is no independent validation of the authenticity of the correspondence between Government agencies listed in this electronic document. 

Corroboration or not, there are so many examples where the liberals in the media and NGO’s have used there bully pulpit to roll over people who stand in their way even law and due process. Similar examples of such injustices can be seen in other democracies like the US but they have conservative media outlets like Fox News and many mainstream newspapers to offset the liberal bias. In India, the sole such outlet is The Daily Pioneer, which suffers from poor circulation and ineffective Internet presence. 

The less successful media has found their niche. Their form of corruption is more old fashioned. It seems that for the right amount of money they will give a person or an organization favorable editorial coverage. Sushma Swaraj, the parliamentary leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has said that she was offered favorable media coverage during national elections last year in exchange for 10 million rupees, or $220,000. 

In a healthy Democracy, the media has a responsibility to keep the people informed so that they make the right choices in elections. In face of agenda / bribe driven reporting what is an Aam Aadmi to do?