Media coverage of reservation stir biased: Journalists Group

New Delhi, May 30: Senior journalists, academicians and a senior doctor from AIIMS have described the media coverage of the anti-reservation stir as "one-sided and biased" with well-known psephologist Yogendra Yadav announcing that his oganisation would survey the background of all mediapersons and judges within two years and put their profiles on the website.

Participating in a seminar on "How Media Covered Reservation Stir" organised by "Journalists for Democracy, Delhi" here on Saturday, Mr Yadav said the media went off the mark in reporting the agitation but added that proponents of reservation should also reconsider to what extent the caste-based OBC reservation was an affirmative action in the Indian society. "Since the Mandal Commission implementation in 1990s, things have undergone a sea change with economic issues coming to the fore", he said.

Referring to his organisation - Centre for Study of Development Socieites (CSDS) - plan to prepare a profile of working journalists and judges, Mr Yadav said such an exercise had already been undertaken in the US and it was necessary to know the conduct and performance of the persons concerned and their expected contribution to the development of the society.

Dr Anoop Saraya, a Professor from AIIMS said the same venue - the park of the premier hospital where employees and doctors were debarred by a court order from staging a protest which is their legal right - now had been thrown open to the anti-reservationists.

''These protesters have rather been facilitated by the hospital management and egged upon by industrialists and a section of political class to raise their bogey of protest with the print and electronic media hovering all around to highlight them." On the other hand, the media had deliberately ignored the pro-reservationists in the AIIMS from projecting their point of view, Dr Saraya said adding that the media bias was more pronounced this time than that witnessed during the anti-Mandal agitation during 1990s.

Well-known columnist Anil Chamdria supported Mr Yadav's views that a section of electronic media deliberately projected the National Health and Family Survey that the percentage of OBC population was only 29 per cent excluding OBC from the Muslim community and not 52 per cent as given out by the Mandal Commission.

Mr Chamdria agreed with Mr Yadav's assertion that the Health and Family survey had a limited purpose and could not be correct.

However, Mr Yadav maintained that the Mandal's figure of the OBC population was disputed and according to his assessment, it could be around 42 per cent.

Most of the senior journalists including Mr G Chandrasekar from UNI, Mr Shambu Nath Singh from Jagran and Mr Urmalesh from Hindi Hindustan argued that the media 'sustained and projected the anti-reservation stir out of proportion and completely blacked out the views and protests of the pro-reservation people who constitute at least 80 per cent of the country's population.

Most of the speakers, including Mr S S Bechain, Professor of Journalism in a Delhi University College and Mr Sidharath Verdhrajan, Delhi-based editor of 'The Hindu,' said most of the working journalists covering the anti-reservation stir "were ignorant about the recent 104th Constitutional Amendment in favour of 27 per cent reservation for OBC and which had been supported by all political parties including the BJP".

Veteran journalist Masat Ram Kapoor said, ''the Indian media is dominated by the upper caste people and none of the Dalits so far have become editor in any mainstream media including the vernacular press....and the ongoing doctors' agitation reflected the pride and self-centredness of the moneyed class with middle calss trappings which does not want to lose any of its privileges." However, Mr Parshotam Aggrawal, a professor from JNU wondered how media could go to the extent of ignoring version of the other side while reporting an incident.

The participants viewed that with economic liberalisation and with private trade owning the electronic media, news was being projected as a 'saleable commodity' meant to generate maximum advertisement revenue for the establishment. "And, the reporters on the spot have ceased to exist in the game of business and enhancing TRP rating," they added.

UNI