THE CURRENT SCENARIO OF INDIAN JOURNALISM

 Agents of erosion are one of the things that we learn in our geography classes that teach us about the constant wear and tear of the earth’s geographical features over time. Likewise, every society faces certain wear and tear in the components with which it is comprised of. The Indian democracy stands on four pillars known as the four pillars of democracy. Press/newspaper is the fourth pillar which ensures that people who are living across the country know what is happening in the rest of the country. It is a medium to maintain the ambiguity and lucidity within the working of the remaining three pillars.

Over many lifetimes have passed by and just like the rules of erosion, these pillars have eroded and ground down with time. Being the fourth pillar, journalism in India is being subjected to questions by the very citizens of the country. A noticeable change is what is required to revive Indian journalism from its present state. The notion of giving voice to the voiceless stands threatened in the 21st Century. The assets of Indian journalism, i.e. credibility, reliability, and authenticity are in grave jeopardy. It alarms me at the idea of whether legitimate news presently finds a segment in the ordinary paper. Influence by the rusted shackles of corruption is what journalism is crammed with nowadays. In the recently released 2019 World Press Index, India was in the 140th position. Journalists today stand deficient in having an independent workspace where they can preach the same fearlessly. They are bounded by these media houses with an extravagant showbiz attitude, feeding on TRPs and viewership while being manipulated by sleazy and deceitful political parties who breed on fraudulent agendas.

There is much more than what meets the eye. The Indian media seems to have drawn boundaries around it to limit its reach and has left the dirtiest and the most obscure insider facts of the nation untouched and unharmed. It has shifted its agenda towards irrelevant subjects like the showbiz society or to openly say, the Indian Film industry. They have decided to play it safe and sound without risking anyone’s wrath. They want to maintain a ‘balance’ with the masses and the dominant structures at the same time but the reality is that they have become the slaves of the latter. How long does an unbiased journalist stand a chance against these ravaging forces? We would probably run out of pages if we begin to jot down the list of journalists who have lost their lives for expressing disagreement towards ‘counterfeit publicity’. But we are not someone to blame them because we ourselves play a feudal part in the same. We crave terms like ‘gossip’ and ‘limelight’ and tickle the media to feed us the same while slowly turning it into a cheap source of entertainment with the least measures of morals.