Rogue Media Houses need to be leashed

Rogue Media Houses need a tight leash
To 06-December-2008
Sri Manmohan Singh Ji
Prime Minister of India
New Delhi

Sir
1. Something needs to be done urgently to leash the Rogue Media in India, the example of recent Terrorist attacks is a case in point ,where the Media went overboard and exposed the Foreign Tourists and Security personnel to great risk, by reporting their status, position and strategy , which the Terrorists saw live on TV or mobiles.
2. The public trial of criminal cases by the media is another case in point, where the reputations of thousands are tarnished daily by this Rogue media.
The most important point is that the Media Houses, especially the established Print media groups are mostly owned by Lalas, Baniya families, who have hundreds of other business interests and they are using their media clout to blackmail the Establishment and Politicians to further their questionable Business interests, some of them have themselves become Rajya Sabha or Legislative Council members. Many of them are Land Mafia elements and they enjoy the Government Patronage in grabbing Lands.
3. There is the old saying, CHOR, CHOR MAUSERE BHAI (thieves are like cousins), I openly throw a challenge that if the owner of a media House or an established Reporter were to openly indulge in Rape, not a single line about the incident will be carried by any Media house or Newspaper.
The media is supposed to be the fourth pillar of democracy therefore it is essential that the Reporters should be paid in accordance with their needs to maintain a reasonable status so that they can report the truth and thus ensure the dignity this fourth pillar. As against this the Reporters of Newspapers (particularly Hindi Newspapers) are paid paltry amounts, with the result that most of them actually are and act like Bonded menial laborers of the owners and are in fact engaged in advancing the illegal trades of their owners, rather than advancing the cause of the Fourth Pillar of Democracy.
In a recent incidence, when the owners of the Dainik Jagran Group, one Mahendra Mohan Gupta, Rajya Sabha M.P, in order to force me to withdraw some public interest petitions, filed by me (raising the issue of grabbing of Cremation Ghat Garden and other Public Parks by their group company and Society, for using for their Commercial ventures), got a false FIR lodged against me (by a person whom I have never even met or ever knew and for this purpose they engaged the services of a so called Labor leader but actually a Mafia element Ramji Tripathi, who runs a Illegal Guest House in residential area and also has an illegal Market and for all these he has been stealing and using electricity directly from the pole. Presently , under the garb of Ganga pollution, he has been extorting money from Tanneries of Kanpur) under SC ST and other Acts, I met senior reporters off Amar Ujala, Hindustan, Tehelka and all other Newspapers and wrote to about a hundred more Media Houses, not one, agreed to carry a single line in my support and at the same time the Dainik Jagran carried reports almost daily to pressurize the Police to send me to Jail. Their Reporters, one Adesh Tripathi and another one carried the False complainant against me in the Groups Car and Paraded him (and exhorted him to give false statements, telling him that he had nothing to fear for his falsities as the full might of the media giants, the Dainik Jagran group was behind him) before the Police Officers.
REMEDY
Therefore something needs to be done to free Journalism from the Clutches of these blood sucking vested interests and Media Barons. (i)- Firstly, by a suitable Legislation. Media Groups, their owners, their relatives etc should be prohibited from entering or carrying out any other Professions or business interests just as the Advocates are barred from carrying on any other business or professional activity other than that of an Advocate.
(ii)- There should be a pay commission for journalists and the pay scale and benefits of Reporters should be fixed at par with at least that of an High Court Judge, if this pillar of democracy is to be saved, needless to say that standards for minimum qualifications of Journalists as well as the Institutes imparting Journalism courses also need to be set. (iii)- Stringent Penal provisions to punish yellow Journalism and media trials. (iv)- An Autonomous Press improvement Body should be set up to encourage forming of Cooperative Societies of Journalists and other Media professionals, which in turn should be encouraged to set up Media publishing Houses and for this purpose, easy and interest free loans for plant and operational expenses should be advanced to them so that at least the first three years expenses are taken care of.

I hope that the Government will do something to check the Malaise
Thanking You
Yours sincerely



(Robby Sharma)
865, Block-B, Panki Kanpur-208020, U.P. India.
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