As in any profit driven society, the concept of free and fair mass media is as good a myth as democracy; however it gets uglier when the multinational corporations are in near total ownership of the media and are influencing every spheres of the government machinery. Clearly, it is not the billion people but the billions which are accumulated by the big businesses that are doing the talking.
In media dynamics, sensationalism has established itself as the perpetual theme and consequently the media practices are becoming increasingly reckless. This is cutting across all forms of mass media, thus mere entertainment values are gauged over the multidimensional factual values. The modern mass media is trekking to new depths in order to mine the farce it is coming up with. The irresponsible attitude of the mass media in particular and the culture it fosters are of grave implications. Recently the death of Jacintha Saldanha sparked up discussions still few and shallow about the existing media culture & practices.
Death of Jacintha Saldanha
Jacintha Saldanha from Mangalore (Karnataka, India) had worked in England for the past 10 years and was around 46 years old when she committed suicide. For the last 4 years, Jacintha had been working in the King Edward VII’s Hospital Sister Agnes{{1}} which thanks to the ever growing media sensationalism was the object of public interest after Kate Middleton{{2}}, being an inpatient in it, after being diagnosed with a rare complication of pregnancy associated with severe nausea and vomiting.
The news of Kate/ Catherine’s pregnancy just clogged up the headlines and almost the entire content of nearly all the national news channels in the United Kingdom. In the commonwealth realm of Australia, the 2Day FM{{3}} soon followed suit with a prank call from its Hot 30 program hosts, Mel Greig and Mike Christian who in fact intended to get Kate through phone. As no switchboard receptionist was on duty in the King Edward VII’s Hospital, it was Jacinta Saldanha (the most unlikely perhaps to differentiate the Australian accent from the Queen’s) who transferred the call to the private nurse of Kate Middleton; the nurse then gave out the details of Kate’s medical condition to the frenzied radio presenters. This particular prank call was cleared prior to airing by the production team which included their lawyers giving a hasty green light for recording a private conversation without consent. The obvious motive is to make best use of the hoax!
Though some news media mentioned about Jacintha’s twice attempted suicides, her recent clinical history of depression and prescription to anti depressant treatment, it is obvious that the prank-call did precipitate matters leading to her unfortunate death. The news papers, television channels, the hospital management and the Royal College of UK condemned this prank call ‘an act of journalistic trickery’, ‘cruel hoax’, etc. The general public outcry through social media networks like Twitter and Facebook against the ‘prank call’ also reflected their sympathy towards the long working hours and the stressful conditions that the nurses are currently in. Besides there have been calls for media regulations, statutory laws and independent regulating bodies for quite a long time from the outbreak of ‘Murdochgate’ phone hacking scandal‘{{4}}.
Regulation Not the Solution!
The Leveson’s enquiry which was set up in the wake of the ‘Murdochgate’ actually whitewashed the obscene links between the press and the political establishment which is safeguarding capitalism thereby jeopardising the interests of the working people. The case is no different in India; not so long ago the high profile ‘Radia tapes controversy’ (2010) illustrated the amalgamation of political lobbyism, journalism and the interests of the business corporations like Tata and Reliance.
The calls for the media regulations including print and digital media would only deteriorate the already sorry state of free expression. A close look into the implementation of existing laws and regulations, and its impact over the existing media practices would reveal how irrelevant those so called conventions in streamlining the heavily biased, pro business, market based, frenzy and reckless journalist practices. Evidently as long as the corrupt government, pro-rich political parties and the big business corporations foster links with the corporate owned mass media apparatus, the so called inquiry committees often set up are mere eyewash with their reports and recommendations of no substantial significance.
Justice Markandey Katju, the current Chairman of Press Council of India, in his rhetoric for media regulation tried to differentiate between ‘media control’ and ‘regulation’ whereby ‘control’ is no freedom and by ‘regulation’ there would be freedom subjected to some level of restrictions. Exposing the influence of Corporate controlled journalism, paid news, etc., Katju was right in pointing out the failure of self-regulatory mechanisms amongst the TV news channels and papers unquestionably driven by profits, but instead of advocating public ownership of media under the democratic workers’ control, it is a call for more regulation extended to electronic media.
Already in the Press Freedom Index (2011-12), compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders, India is positioned badly at 131 among 179 countries (include totalitarian and semi totalitarian regimes). It is more than clear that the corporate media is biased, corrupt, reckless, unethical and not free or fair. Just having a regulatory body with some bureaucrats in it is not going to make any difference, apart from not really improving the access of media to the working people and other marginalised sections of society.
Even now at the heights of global capitalism, we can see the working models of independent and non profit based collaborative journalism, participatory journalism, grassroots media, people’s media, etc.; many of which are accessible freely to both the universal community editorship and readership like Wikinews, Wikipedia, WikiLeaks, etc. being developed and its prevalence and influence are only increasing. Still there are huge areas of development needed in especially controlling the bias and in closing the plugs that are open to the enduring effects of the corporate media. We need to campaign for a genuinely free media that is neither under big business control nor state control. Independent free mass media, independent popular press and genuine freedom of expression would only be possible in a democratic socialist society, where the media is publicly owned under democratic workers’ control, decentralised & opened up to all the communities, inclusive and impartial to views of every section of the society{{5}}.
Sajith Attepuram
London, Socialist Party (England & Wales)
[[1]] a private hospital in London [[1]]
[[2]] a Royal (scrounging) family member and wife of Prince William, the second in line to the throne [[2]]
[[3]] the Sydney-based radio station [[3]]
[[4]] An ongoing scandal gripping the now closed British paper News of the World paper (NoW)belongs to the News Corporation owned by the media baron & billionaire Rupert Murdoch and its reported involvement in crimes including phone hacking, bribes, data intrusion, computer hacking and improper access to medical, banking and other personal records in its journalistic methods. Also See: Media, Murdoch and Leveson [[4]]
[[5]] Except those of the extreme right-wing fundamentalist variety [[5]]
1 Comment
Comments are closed.