Sashi Kumar, chairman of Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, said on Saturday that the role of journalism was being increasingly questioned in the last two decades. He was delivering a talk on ‘Media and public interest’ at the School of Communication, a constituent of Manipal University, here.
Most of the news media were not representative of social or cultural realities of rural areas, he said. Issues such as child labour, female infanticide, gender inequality, lack of education and healthcare in rural areas got little space in the media.
The problem with media was that it was advertisement-driven, he said. Around 80 to 85 per cent of the revenue of the newspapers came from advertisements, while television news channels were totally dependent on advertisements. The “tyranny of advertisements” was dictating media, he rued.
Though there was 10 to 15 per cent growth in newspapers in the country, there was less of journalism, he said. Due to competitive pressures, all television new channels ended up focusing on the same stories.
K. Ramnarayan, Vice-Chancellor of Manipal University, Nandini Lakshmikantha, Director of SOC, were present.
