A shocking development has come into light after the recent state assembly elections in Maharashtra . Some sections of media are demanding candidates to pay for news space for the politicians and parties in the form of coverage packages. Almost like corporate advertise their products in the media the press is allowing themselves to be a vehicle for promotion of the politicians. This I believe was first reported by Magsasay Award winning journalist P. Sainath in his article 'The medium, message and money'. He writes: "The Assembly elections saw the culture of "coverage packages" explode across the State. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for almost any coverage at all. Issues didn't come into it. No money, no news ". This was reported during the last Lok Sabha elections too but went largely unnoticed.
The role of media is to play a role of a neutral observer by presenting facts as they are to the common man in a form understandable by them and if necessary criticize the undesirable behaviour of individuals or institutions which are against constitution and the interest of the citizens. But in recent times with newspapers and a few television channels being owned by the political parties this has definition has undergone a change. But fortunately until now these party owned media elements have remained in the background with people preferring the more neutral of them. But the challenge that the current situation poses is more dangerous. The so called neutral media is letting them to be taken on loan by the money power. What is at stake is the whole idea of the free press in our country. This unfortunate development is a threat to the democratic setup of our nation. Until now we fortunately have had one of the most free presses in the world, even by the standards of the other democracies. The form of participatory democracy in our country which needs the citizen to take informed decisions and protest based on the information he gets loses its meaning in such a situation. The public which relies on the media to base its opinions loses its source. All they will get is skewed reality dependent on the weight of money packets. An independent candidate who wants to stand for a good cause may get sidelined since he is not affluent as those inside the party system or has been in power for some time. Also the shortcomings of the candidates may also get underreported presenting with him as the ideal candidate.
On one side this issue has got to do with ethics of journalism. By presenting paid for propagandist information as news they are breaching the common readers who take these as facts without further question. The ethics of ones profession should be something that each individual journalist have to stick to at any cost. The various press and media association also should also lay certain guidelines on these matters. The first and foremost priority should be to serve the nation by clean straightforward reporting and not to increase the bank balances. On the other side the candidates may be committing serious electoral misconduct through this. Some have been reportedly paying huge sums, much greater than stipulated by the law, for buying these packages. Such crimes if being done are no worse than other forms of electoral malpractices such as booth capturing, this can be controlled only if the EC steps in and takes stringent action.
With the government mulling over liberalising the press further by allowing, the advent of corporate culture in journalism may act as an incentive to such a actions. If such tendencies continue unchecked, it won't be far away when the media becomes just a propagandist tool owned indirectly by political forces as in some countries in the west. Already the mass media and press is doing much damage by diverting the public attention from the real issues that they face.Selling journalism is the one of the lowest levels of decency a free media can go. If no action is taken to nip this from the bud it has the potential to spread like a virus to the other forms of media and become the norm. That would be the last thing that a democratic system wants .The civil society and the regulatory bodies need to take notice of this and act accordingly.
