"A lot of media has forgotten that journalism is for people, not shareholders. A few publications would like to entirely drop some sections or readers becase it spoils their purchasing power profile. There are no labour correspondents, no agriculture correspondents ... But most papers have 12 business correspondents, even if it's a general interest paper. They've decided that 70 per cent of people don't make news, and this is a gigantic reflection of the character of the industry."
"Plus, diversity has a way of evening things up a little. I think kindly of the Indian press whenever i am in the US. These two countries - India and America - are the most diverse societies in the world. There are apparently 115 languages spoken in Queens, in New York, a fifth of them might be Indian, even! But look at your American newspaper, and it's essentially a white Anglo-Saxon thing. Diversity is tokenist. In India, thanks to language and culture, there's a much broader sweep of the culture being taken in by the media.
But 'people diversity' is still a problem in India, the Americans have a lot more of this kind of representation. There's not one dalit editor in a major newspaper, and media remains the most exclusionist institution in the country. Our political spectrum is much wider than what you'd think, from looking at the media."
"The other thing is to remember that I can't be speaking in the voice of the masses, the people have their own voice. What I can do is talk to peasants and workers and let you know what those conversations are like, and ask if you want to listen. I'm looking at the human condition in this society and telling it the way I see it. I don't want o characterise readers by class or other homogeneity. I think we can all try to touch the differences."
Excerpts from an interview for India Together P. Sainath talks to Ashwin Mahesh about his work and his views on trade, politics, society, and the media.
The comment is so reflective of our times where ratings dictate any coverage. Because crime sells, it's on the front page. And because poor people are not in the "right" target audience, there stories don't make it to the newspapers.And diversity, both in viewpoint and in representaion is fast becoming extinct.
A professor once said to me that media can't just give readers what it wants, referring to the fluff stuff.
A child will always ask for chocolates and fast food, which is not healthy. You can't give in to the demand. You need to feed them vegetables, too. Because that's healthy and maybe in time, they will like it. We only feed the readers nonsense and they don't know what we are capable of. That's why many readers don't take us seriously.
He didn't necessarily mean to say readers are ignorant but implied that we only go by statistics and not by the desire to serve the public.
Of course the people have a voice but we fail them by not hearing it or making it heard.
2 comments:
Thank you for writing your blog. I feel like I understand so much more because of it. It is always inspiring to me to hear people who are trying to give others a voice when they are usually silenced. It is a calling.
Best of Luck,
Aletha
Appreciate this thought. I do agree that corporations motto of increasing shareholder value is just short term; this can be seen as most of the print journalism in America is in shambles.
If only 'content was king' like many want to believe, it is the customers who really are. So the question still remains why don't media companies provide the content that customers want to see or hear?
One person cannot do much, but at least its good to begin somewhere.
R
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