the fall of fourth, failing, state in india

 “the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."  - Alex Cary ( Australian sociologist. )



Post-2008, the really big corporate guns have moved into TV media space, muscling out the beleaguered promoters. The increased stakes of Reliance in CNN-IBN, which will also give it (direct?) control over the Eenadu group, the southern behemoth, remains the best example. More recently, there have been unconfirmed reports that the Aditya Birla group, which already has a 27.5 per cent equity stake in the TV Today group, is keen to up its stakes to 51 per cent in one of India’s most influential media conglomerates.

The disempowering of the reporter has strengthened the hands of the editor and, by implication, the promoter. The real repository of wisdom has shifted to the news studio with its band of pseudo-experts and instant commentators. Studio discussions increasingly form a major proportion of “news” content. These work out cheaper (you don’t have to send out reporters) and can be editorially “controlled” much like a laboratory experiment. The studio guests are “experts” with well-known views and stated positions, both for and against the issue on the table. Such simulated “cockfights,” staple of prime-time television, also ensure that no discussion breaches the carefully media “manufactured consent” (Noam Chomsky) essential to the perpetuation of the status quo.

The irony is that all this comes at a time when democracy is growing deeper roots across the country with more political awareness.

A “top-down” editorial flow and homogenised news content which rob politics of its critical impulses (not in the narrow sense of BJP versus Congress), have made the state’s job of “managing” media a lot easier and hassle free.

More crucially, the sheer absence of diversity in content and editorial homogenisation are a body blow to India’s plural underpinnings. What is therefore needed is not just a Leveson-like Inquiry, as suggested by several prominent liberals, to clean up the mess but a whole slew of reforms which will include more protection to journalists; a more meaningful effort to professionalise management; and, above all, strong antitrust laws to ensure diversity both in ownership and content.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-death-of-the-reporter/article4326446.ece?homepage=true