Alleging that the corporate-controlled structure of media has largely prevented it from reflecting real issues of people, C. Mahendran, National Executive Committee Member of Communist Party of India, said that the Indian media should take cue from its American counterpart in doing rigorous public-interest journalism.
Speaking at a function here on Friday to felicitate N. Palani Kumanan, who was part of the Pulitzer Prize winning team of Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for investigative journalism in 2015, Mr. Mahendran said that the American media had continued to produce public-interest journalism despite being in the control of corporates.
M. Gunasekaran, news editor of News 18 television channel, said that the award for Mr. Palani Kumanan, who is primarily a software architect, highlighted the emerging importance of technology in journalism.
Detailing WSJ’s investigative report on the issues in health insurance sector in the United States for which it won the Pulitzer Prize, Mr. Gunasekaran said that the amount of data handled by WSJ for the article was unimaginably large.
“That is where the role of people like Mr. Palani Kumanan becomes important, in processing and analysing these data with the help of softwares,” he said.
Praising Palani Kumanan for being the first Tamilian to win the Pulitzer Prize, M. Natarajan, editor of Puthiya Parvai magazine, took a jibe at Indian media, particularly those in Tamil Nadu, for spreading false news and targeting people with wild allegations to make it sensational.
Agreeing that gutsy journalism was necessary to question the people in power, he alleged that the media here was misusing this guts for defaming people. “People in America are open to valid criticism. However, the media will hesitate to defame people as they will be taken to court and forced to pay hefty compensation,” he said. Lauding the achievements of Mr. Palani Kumanan, K. Vaidyanathan, editor of Dinamani newspaper, also recollected the achievements of Mr. Palani Kumanan’s father and eminent politician P. Nedumaran during the function.
