The Hindu : National : Free movement of media products across SAARC nations favoured

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 12, 2004

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National

Free movement of media products across SAARC nations favoured

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 11. The Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, S. Jaipal Reddy, today advocated the free movement of media products — publications or television programmes — across the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries so as to foster a better understanding of each other.

Addressing the first national conference on `Working of Press Laws and Right to Information,' organised by the South Asian Free Media Association (India Chapter) here, Mr. Reddy assured the gathering that he would pursue the matter. No country in the region could afford to simultaneously prepare for war and poverty and there was a need to rise above narrow nationalism, he said.

Mr. Reddy echoed the views of the former Minister for Disinvestment, Arun Shourie, on various media-related issues.

Mr. Reddy said, "I agree with Mr. Shourie," who argued that it was not laws but the content of newspapers and news programmes and the conduct of journalists that mattered. Mr. Reddy lamented the absence of plurality in content. "All television channels and newspapers are producing same analytical content and there is not much diversion of perception."

He cited the 14th Lok Sabha elections as an example, when most publications and television channels made similar predictions.

Mr. Reddy recalled how all suffered from a kind of collective self-delusion.

On the "cannibalisation of the institution of editorship in the country," he said: "In the past, newspapers used to be known by the name of their editors and not their proprietors as it is today."

Referring to the contempt proceedings initiated by the Tamil Nadu Assembly against The Hindu , Mr. Shourie said: "When was the last time a journalist was successfully prosecuted by any government in India?"

With the gathering unable to come up with any particular case save that of Nakkeeran Gopal, he said: "We get exercised with Press laws but the fact is that we cannot recall one instance. It is a testimony and a fact that we have to salute and accept. Whenever a government has raised a hand against the media, that hand has got burnt."

Blaming the media for the Government's failure to liberalise certain media-related laws — allowing Foreign Direct Investment in the print media being a case in point — Mr. Shourie said: "The Executive is fearful of antagonising the dominant newspapers of the country."

Mr. Shourie said that "human-interest journalism" could lead to the demise of newspapers and further "dumbing down of society."

He urged journalists to read whatever material was available instead of waiting for a Right to Information law.

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