How many of you watch news on TV ? The audience was asked from the dais in an auditorium on December 16. Not a single hand went up. This shows the huge loss of credibility of the television media.
The occasion was a day long discussion on the media organised by Indie Jounal and Pune Collective at S.M. Joshi foundation hall in Pune attended by a large number of journalism students from various parts and media professionals.
Similar is the case with Hindi daily journalism. Urmilesh, a former executive director of Rajya Sabha TV, said in his inaugural address that he reads six Hindi dailies in the morning. It is frustrating, Not one of them can be said to practise real journalism.
He recalled the great tradition of Indian journalism from the area of Dr Ambedkar, Nehru and Gandhi. Bhagat Singh, revolutionary, himself wrote a number of articles for Pratap edited by Ganesh Shanka Vidyarthi, a freedom fighter. Vidyarthi laid down his life while interventing in a communal riot in 1931 at the age of 41.
An unusual part of the conclave was that most participants were from dalit, Adivasi or Muslim, activist backgrounds and there was also discussion on how they got inadequate representation in the media or were marginalised in jobs. The view regarding poor representation was contesed by Jayadev Dole, author and former media professor. Pointing out to Rajendra Sathe who sat in the audience, he said when Sathe headed Eenadu television channel most of the staff was from disadvantaged communities.
There was also discussion on new media platforms like youtube and Instagram. Surya Dash talked about the use of youtube for creating awareness about the disastrous impact of mining companies in Orissa on adivasis and the environment. There was a lot of influence of these programmes some time ago but then the mining companies produced their own youtube content, overwhelming the content of resistance groups. The name of Nira Radio of the notorious Radia tapes controversy was recalled in this connection.
He said his group is now thinking of going back to simpler ways of reaching the people through pamphlets etc. It was also pointed out that many people should subscribe to the group’s channel and make it viable.
Heena Khan and Sameer Shaikh spoke about their experience as Muslims in Marathi journalism along with Delhi based Mahtab Alam who writes in Hindi, Urdu and English. Hina, author of aMarathi books on triple talaq and inter faith marriages, said good deeds done by Muslims were praised with the implication suggesting that that they did this despite the community’s `demonic` character.
Mahtab Alam said Muslim girls had done well in English language journalism, winning many awards. This point is not quite related but one is reminded of an observation by Jawed Naqvi, Dawn correspondent in Delhi, made some years ago, that Muslims by and large did not write about issues other than affecting their community. They need to. Dalits need to take up economic issues affecting the community, not just issues of case, this was central to Dr Ambedkar’s thinking. In Mumbai one finds hardly any protests over the redevelopment of two large colonies of Dalits closely tied to the Ambedkarite movement, Mata Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar in the eastern suburb and BDD chawls in the heart of Mumbai where property prices are particularly high.
Sudipto Mondal of News Minute opposed the presumption that all was well with the south of the country as against the cow belt. There was as much anti dalit prejudice in Tamil Nadu as in U.P., he said. He said lakhs had gathered at Deeksha Bhoomi in Nagpur on December 6 to pay homage to Dr Ambedkar but the media spotlight was diverted to singer Shankar Mahadevan’s visit to the RSS headquarters in the city.
Abhijeet Kamble, editor of Mahaashtra Times online edition, said elite dominance of the media was universal including in the U.K., it was not confined to India.
The programme was conceptualised by Ajit Abhyankar, CITU trade union leader, and journalists Prajakta Joshi and Prathamesh Patil of Indie Journal.
Vidyadhar Date is a senior journalist and author of a book seeking democratisation of transpot
