Divided and discredited

The Indian media has dug itself into quite a hole in the recent past. Yet, hope for the future does not seem all that elusive either

"Indian Media in middle of a perfect storm"

India's top-notch blogger and novelist Sidin Vadukut based in the United Kingdom, best known for his jokes on the social media, in an exclusive interview with Aditya Raj Kaul comments on the standards of Indian media and how the social media is disrupting the government's monopoly on sending a message

Do we need a media council?

There can be no doubt whatsoever that the image of the Indian media has taken a beating in the year gone by. It is time for everyone to wake up and smell the coffee

Media exposed

There are several challenges facing our media in the years ahead. Paid news is just one of them. There are other critical issues that we need to tackle

Doctor Jekyll manages to hide

On June 16, 2012, journalists Rajesh Saraf, Byamokesh Kar, Badri Prasad Sahu and Sanjib Mahapatra, local correspondents of TV channels and a newspaper, arrived at Bargarh in Odisha to look into a nursing home about which some unhealthy reports were rife.

Caught Between Scylla and Charybdis

Journalism is not easy in Kashmir, having become even more difficult during the past 20 years of unrelieved turmoil.

A gag on freedom?

Narrating the truth comes with its own consequences. Manipulating and muzzling the press is not new to India’s vast media industry and the trend only continues to grow.

Finding new solutions to old problems

"We don't take pride in telling the truth"

We do not have recourse to a lot of higher processes; we cannot expect authorities to protect us. Even our judicial process is against us.

The Curse of the Green Gold

"Who says money does not grow on trees?” Geeta Pandey of the BBC could not have concluded her story on the unique saga of vanilla cultivation in India better. All praise for the "discovery of a new gold” by the villagers of Kerala, the report (Vanilla Sweetens Indians’ lives, BBC, February 24, 2004) stands testimony to one of the many orchestrated attempts to introduce a new crop into an already weak and vulnerable agrarian economy that has failed.

Looking where no one looks

The very inception of DD happened with programmes on agriculture in 1959, that was the beginning. The Krishi Darshan programme of DD is very well known. For last few years, we have been running several big projects for the Ministry of Agriculture, which we call the Mass Media Support to Agriculture Extension. Within that, we have two components. We have a half-an-hour agriculture programme from 18 major stations everyday.

The chief problem is inconsistency

The Indian Meteorological Department started the Agro-Meteorological agricultural Advisory Service (AAS) in collaboration with Agriculture Departments of the respective State Governments in 1976. The aim was to provide agro-meteorological data to the farmers in order to help them better plan their agricultural activities. We started initially on a state level. By 1987, we had a bulletin for each of the 127 agro-climatic zones in the country.

"Not enough journalists are qualified to do justice to the beat"

The media coverage of agriculture and rural sector in India has evolved along the lines of growth of the farm sector. In the pre-Green Revolution period, coverage was limited to food shortage, need for food imports, food aid, how the food aid is coming, distress of people suffering from hunger and starvation deaths.

"There is a severe lack of empathy"

Our reporting of rural matters and agricultural issues is very poor and superficial. The little reportage that happens occurs only when there is a drought, like this year. It is more of a knee jerk reaction. There is no consistency in reporting on the fundamental problems facing both agriculture and the rural sector.

'Media more keen on Fashion Weeks than Farmers Suicides'

Among the three issues, drought is more likely to get some coverage because of the sensation any calamity causes. All the studies we have, from the Centre for Media Studies in Delhi show us that serious coverage of the farm crisis is minimal. As for poverty, the media celebrates the great ‘decline’ in poverty based on official definitions and numbers, which are quite pathetic.