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| Several J&K newspapers have become marketing agencies of ruling party: Harsh Dev | | ‘Magnified coverage being given to Saffron party leaders by Godi media’ | |  Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 1: Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, Harsh Dev Singh on Saturday alleged that several newspapers in J&K having become marketing agencies in the hand of ruling party and some political syndicates and the fourth pillar of democracy was getting debilitated and weakened.
In a statement Singh said that media had a very significant role as an enabler of democracy and in facilitating a better educated society but as on date only a selected media houses were acting as true guardians of democracy and were performing their role as watch-dogs to protect public interest.
He said that such media houses needed to be complimented for their bold and fearless reporting thereby enabling the public to form a fair opinion about the functioning of the government.
He said that several newspapers and media houses had faced the wrath of the government and even suffered immensely in view of their truthful and fair projection of the administration’s role besides its omissions and commissions and even penalized by the latter. The role of such media houses shall continue to be remembered and eulogized even after this dark era of political authoritarianism his ended, remarked Singh.
Accusing the BJP leadership and its political allies of having hijacked most of the media houses and newspapers, Singh regretted that such malicious actors were using the press for promotion of their own political parties and their vested interests. Some of them were creating an extremely unhealthy discourse by creating bubbles of one-sided information by either ignoring the opposition all together or downplaying its leadership. While the BJP and JKAP leaders were being projected out of proportion by these media houses, the space of opposition leaders was consistently shrinking. It has become conspicuous that press notes of opposition were being edited in the BJP offices. Larger than life characters of certain insignificant and opportunist leaders were being created through magnified coverages by the ‘Godi media’ while disallowing proper coverage to the version of the opposition leaders. The prestige of the press was blemished in a glaring example of the height of sycophancy, when one of the newspapers described one BJP leader as ‘Gaurav-e-Jammu’ for its business interests.
Does it not amount to a deviation from the role and responsibilities of fair reporting and code of conduct evolved for the media in the democratic jurisprudence?, questioned Singh.
Defending the freedom of press, he said that ruling parties must refrain from manipulations and use of coercive measures against the media and ensure a balanced coverage to all the stakeholders in a democratic system. “It needs to be ensured that all are listened to and the community has access to communications both from the ruling party as well as opposition,” Singh said. |
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