Today's media do not care about credibility: Mitra

Patna, Sep 25: Rajya Sabha MP and senior journalist Dr Chandan Mitra has expressed concern over the growing trend in the media world to make news 'saleable' without caring for its authenticity and credibility.

Speaking at a seminar on 'Is the Indian media responsible' on Wednesday, Sep 24, Mr Mitra said, ''Nowadays, the media fraternity is engaged in the dirty game of making money by presenting the news in such a way which makes it spicy without caring for its credibility.'' He also came down heavily on some news channels which always strived to increase TRPs by sensationalising news items and in the rat race for grabbing eyeballs, they often failed to do justice to the news stories.

''Across the globe the media is acclaimed as the 'Fourth Estate of Democracy'. However, the recent trend of 'makeshift journalism' or the 'commodification of news' raises a question mark on the true sense of this term,'' he said.

The Media industry, especially the management section of the news world, intermingles mainstream news and tabloid or entertainment news with the purpose to sensationalise it and get monetary benefit.

As a result, news has lost its credibility and authenticity, proving the lack of true news sense of the mediapersons.

''This irresponsible attitude and dubious role played by both the print and electronic media is not healthy and rather detrimental to an emerging and democratic country like India,'' he added.

''Journalists should be more careful regarding the nature of news and its proper presentation. In a polyglot country like India, the media should exercise its powers for the betterment of the society and should not be biased or mislead readers and viewers under the influence of monetary or other kind of temptations,'' Dr Mitra felt.

Prominent among others who addressed the function were Justice (Retd) P S Sahaay and Dr N K Srivastava.

UNI