President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said the media can undertake its role of cleansing public life only if its own conduct is above board.
“The highest standards of ethics must be maintained at all times,” he said while addressing the Platinum Jubilee Celebrations of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) here.
Expressing concern over “aberrations” like ‘paid news’ which have crept into the media, the President said: “Sensationalism should never become a substitute for objective assessment and truthful reporting. Gossip and speculation should not replace hard facts. Every effort should be made to ensure that political or commercial interests are not passed off as legitimate and independent opinion.”
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Urging the media to build on the strong and durable institutions and traditions left behind by the pioneers of the Press in India, Mr. Mukherjee made out a case for not just weeding out aberrations but also put in place self-correcting mechanisms to check such tendencies.
He also spoke out against the tendency to “dumb down” news and said the nation faces critical challenges that go well beyond the pressure of ‘breaking news’ and immediate headlines. “While you must continue to be effective raconteurs, you must also be visionary national builders,” he told the gathering of eminent personalities from the media.
Dubbing media as the “crystal ball that millions of Indians gaze at” and the conscience-keepers of the nation, the President said: “It is your responsibility and bounden duty to ensure that ideas are debated dispassionately and thoughts articulated without fear or favour so that opinion is always well informed.”
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Mr. Mukherjee said journalists must bring to public notice the array of ills and deprivations that continue to beset a large section of the population; be it malnourishment, continuance of discriminatory practises, or the burdens and tragic consequences of indebtedness.
Addressing the gathering, INS president Ravindra Kumar said the newspaper industry was facing an existential crisis; “one whose contours haven't quite been appreciated by various stakeholders – including government and newspaper employees.” Pondering aloud if the newspaper industry would survive another 25 years for INS to celebrate its centenary, he said the print media was being undermined by the presence of other media and “occasionally intrusive policies” of the government.
He identified some of these policies as amendments to the Press and Registration of Books law which proposes to link content to licensing, “continuance of the anachronism of wage boards, withdrawn from every other industry,” and arbitrary fixation of government advertisements rates.