C.P. Scott,
the founder editor of the Manchester Guardian, once said: “News is sacred,
opinion is free”. In
Media is an integral and imperative
component of democratic polity and is rightly called fourth limb of democracy.
It is not merely what the media does in a democracy, but what it is, that
defines the latter. Its practice, its maturity, and the level of ethics it
professes and practices in its working are as definitive of the quality of a
democracy as are the functions of the other limbs. With tremendous growth and
expansion, prospects of mass media are today viewed as more powerful than ever
before.
However some feel that the media has
gone too far ahead of itself, and today media has become more show rather than
the medium.
Media has created its own world of
glamour, gossip, sex and sensation, that has played a
major role in distracting attention from the real issues of our times.
Former Chief Vigilance Commissioner N.
Vittal in his article in Bhavan’s
journal June 30, “Journalism is losing……” has indicated that special problem
faced by journalists these days relates to journalism itself. The page 3
culture can make people live in a make-believe world and as a result, instead
of journalism connecting people, it may result in the people losing touch with
reality being connected through the media. He has noted that in the media,
print or electronic, glamour has become a part of day-to-day life and that has
led to the development of the Page 3 culture. It was the crystallisation
of the concept articulated by Andy Warhol that in future “everyone will be
famous for 15 minutes”.
The combination of television and Page
3 culture has also made a very curious impact on public persons many of whom do
not enjoy the public esteem in real sense and need to be seen to be remembered.
In the past to become public celebrity lot of groundworks
were involved including physically meeting people and connecting with them in
their needs and aspiration. But thanks to the electronic media and the print
media, it has become possible to reach a wider audience quite often and thus
attaining the status of celebrity without having to undergo the drudgery of travelling along the dusty roads and to standby the people
in their needs to get results.
A tabloid originally meant “small
tablet of medicine”, then it was used figuratively to mean a compressed form or
dose of anything, hence tabloid journalism (1901), and newspapers that typified
it (1918), that has small pages, short articles, and lot of photographs. Tabloids
are often considered to be less serious than other newspapers printed on large
sized paper (broadsheets), and qualified to be called entertainment journalism.
The term ‘Page three’ originates from
entertainment news in daily newspapers supplements appearing usually on the
third page that chronicle parties and gossip of the glitterati – the country’s
equivalent of tabloid journalism. Page 3 features colour
photo spreads of celebrities and the nouvea riche at parties and of
course, captured indulging in activities far removed from life of the general
public. There are lots of people who only read Page 3 sheets and discard the
main newspaper, specially the young. The range from fashion
designers to models, artists of the silver screen and glamorous celebrities.
Today, the flashy supplements are a mix of celebrity news, party pictures,
movie gossip and juicy stories on private lives of celebrities.
Page 3 has become a phenomenon and is
believed to have arisen out of sensationalism. People may love to love it or
love to hate it, but cannot ignore it.
Observers say that
Tabloidization
is a shift by the media away from national and international issues of
importance to a more entertainment or gossipy style of journalism that focuses
on “Lifestyle, celebrity, entertainment and crime/scandal”. This shift is
really a matter of concern because it gives rise to fear for the future of the
media and the role and responsibility attached to it.
The fear behind this shift towards tabloidization lies in its implications. The effect of this
shift to a more entertainment based journalism style is that the important
issues such as health care education and issues relating socio political
reforms which require to be addressed with seriousness have been given the back
seat. The nation is deprived of information vital to reaching sound policy
decisions. Our perception of society can vary greatly depending on the source
of news and that bad information will inevitably lead to bad public policies.
There are some persons with lot of
confidence in media who argue that Tabloidization
has, infact, not occurred and that the media is the
same today as it was thirty years ago, but, there are some facts, which tell a
different story: A survey reported on the net showed that in 1977 less than 1%
of the stories covered in network news were about scandal; by 1987 they were
17%, and straight news declined from 51% in 1977 to 34% in 1997. During the
same time period ‘Time Magazines’ stories about government declined from 15% to
4% while entertainment stories rose from 8% to 15%. Even though this survey
covers a decade that is already two decades back and the magnitude of the shift
may be arguable, but clearly a shift has been taking place in the manner in
which the media present the news. It is not unreasonable to think that the
position today has changed by leaps and bounds extending the horizon of tabloidization. The question needs to be addressed is what
then has caused or led the media to move in this direction.
One view is that the corporations that
own the satellite channels are responsible. The other view is that competition
between networks is responsible. Another view is that public
person only interested in their glamour image have encouraged the whole
process to draw away the attention of the public from serious issues.
The news journalists “follow orders”
from the corporate owners and shape the news accordingly. The result is news
media, which “manipulates information” to push the agenda of the corporations
which is based on marketing themselves and their products. Covering
up of the news that may be detrimental to the economic health and/or reputation
of the company guides such marketing. This is where tabloidization
comes into play. In order to push their interests or to draw the attention away
from the news that may in fact ‘hurt’ them, the corporations have created a
news media that concentrate on attracting audiences through stories about
sleaze, scandal and personal lives.
Another lamentable feature is erosion
of the importance of the office of Editor. In olden days, editor used to enjoy
a special position in a newspaper. Even if a particular newspaper had leaned
towards a particular socio-political ideology, the editor had always enjoyed
enough freedom to articulate his view and comments on contemporary events. Some
newspapers, as a matter of fact, used to be known by the excellence of their
editors. In this age of tabloidization and pursuit of
extreme commercial interest, advertisement or commercial directors of a
newspaper enjoy special position and often decide to what extent general news
will be covered.
Has corrosive competition lead to the Tabloidization of the news? The major fear of the media
having this speed – based mentality is that it is at the cost of accuracy and
that the attitude has become “never let the facts stand in the way of a good
story”.
Corporate ownership also has played a
role in the process of Tabloidization. Marketing has
become a large part of both television and print media. Tabloidization
is much less expensive than traditional reporting. It costs less to run a news
clip than to send a reporter to the scene.
The technology factors have also
played major role in the process of Tabloidization.
The technological improvements and editing technologies made the “packaging”
possible.
The dominance of Page 3 people in the
news content of newspaper and its ever increasing
horizon especially in national level newspapers, is a negative trend, visible
in the media as a whole irrespective of being print or electronic. In fact, on
the electronic media, cinema trivia control the prime time bulletin. Regional
media has by and large exhibited till now greater restraint in carrying
trivialized material in their news content.
The colour
picture supplements with
“Page 3” meet the requirement of both the patrons and clients.
They can bring in everything – Publicity for products – without even raising an
eyebrow. Exaggerated pressures from the television/satellite channels are used
as a pretext by print media for supposed felt need propelled by competition for
further trivialization of news columns which, in turn, encourage more crass commercialisation.
Indeed, this vicious circle though highly reprehensible, rules the field.
Insensitivity to the content and focus
on trivia are rampant today with media focussing more
and more on illness and accidents of the famous at the cost of developmental
issues. The coverage of personal life of celebrities more than needed only
leaves the message that nothing else was happening in the country, which
deserves its place in the coverage of news. Yet it is worth nothing that young
viewers polled by Mid-Day agreed that the Volcker
Committee report was more important. This indicates the divide between what
people want and what the media thinks that people want. They would do well to
recognize the pulse of the people.
Criticising trivialisation and sensationalisation of news recently Shri Jaipal Reddy, former Minister for Information & Broadcasting pointed out that Media scene in the country had undergone not only a “dramatic” change but also a ‘traumatic’ one. Page 3 people are increasingly trying to get into page one by joining politics. Further he emphasised that entertainment should be distinct from information. Instead of discussing the dressing sense or appeal, the media should focus on their work. He advised media to do “collective and cool, introspection” besides building up its credibility and urged print media not to compete with electronic media glamorisation. The comments of Reddyji deserve a serious thought.
In the media scenario, which had
emerged today, there is growing practice of masquerading paid publicity as
genuine news. A large amount of media’s contemporary problems
flow from the greed of a section of it. Surprisingly, the established
ones with decisive market domination are very often alleged, indulge in this
pernicious practice of selling news columns. In this era of economic opening
up, lobbyist or even foreign powers, can fill news
columns with inspired stories.
If the present trend catches on, there
will be no way to stop it. We need to be alive to the danger before it is too
late.
The threat has to be met, not by trivialisation, but by more indepth
and public interest stories and background on which the print media is on a
stronger wicket. Market surveys create cherished myths like the ‘Generation
Now’ is disinterested in serious political and economic news and everyone is
casual glancer of colour
advertisements. But the popularity of the “competition” pages, intelligent quiz
programmes tell a different story.
It is not the free market competition
but competitive marketisation of the media that
creates a generation of false notion. Mindless marketisation
by interested sections can be countered only by better understanding of what
the public want. Media should not forget that its main aim is to provide
information to create a sound citizenry.
Instead of an imagined “generation
now” mindset, newspapers will have to spread horizontally – like consumer
producers exploring the vast rural market. Newspapers will have to sell the
news to the readers, the ultimate consumer of news for whose benefits the whole
task is undertaken.
This shift from journalism to the
market is not a good or healthy sign. In the
In our country we seem to have somehow
deviated from the core mandate of journalist. We have commercialised,
we have trivialised, we have
indulged in pernicious attempt to make all the pages as Page 3. Such state of
affair is to be noted with anxiety and grave concern. To say the least, this
trend is not good because journalism is one of the continuing thought processes
of civilisation. The redeeming feature is that by and
large the regional media, or the regional language media, which is also called
the vernacular media, has not yet fallen to a reasonable extent to this trend
of trivialisation. But anxiety is how long this last
pasture will remain comparatively green.
Following the commercialisation
of the media, the adage ‘mirror of society’ associated with journalism is
perhaps no longer relevant. Therefore the immediate task is to grapple with an
ethical question: Is there a “this far and no further” in commercialisation
of news? It is no secret that the columns of newspapers are handed out on a
platter to suit personal interests by planting favourable
stories and killing negative ones. In the process, objectivity has taken a
holiday.
The time perhaps has come for the P.R.
man to rise to use his skills for an image makeover for the newspaper industry
and I do not mean just a cosmetic make over but that which will have depth and
touch the society at large.
Public Relation is certainly an asset
to any venture and I am sure that the members of the society that I am
addressing today are alive to their larger responsibilities to the country over
the interests of the company they serve.
Last but not the least, the role of
readers, assumes great importance in combating the malaise being discussed. The
readers, in my view have important role to play. If they remain callous and
meekly accept whatever is given to them by the media without any protest or
critical estimate of the role of media, this unfortunate trend would continue
unabated and perhaps with greater ferocity ultimately leading the readers to be
insensitive to the real role required to be played by the media in building up
a vibrant and progressive society. Eternal vigilance is not only the price of
democracy but also the price for effective role of the media. I appeal to all
right thinking citizen to raise voice of protest against the malady of tabloidization and page three syndrome
as effectively as practicable. I am confident that such protest and
constructive criticism of the role of media cannot go unheeded.
I wish you all the best in the endeavour.