Abhishek Mishra

BIASES OF MEDIA: A BRIEF OUTLOOK

The Fourth pillar of the democracy, The Voice of the common man, The Most Powerful
Institution are the names which reflect the credibility and faith we, as a citizen have, in Media.
The question which eventually follows is that everyone has a certain inclination. What is the
issue if media or press is biased towards some section, some issues or some political party? We
will see as we move that why biases of press are the biggest threat not only to Journalism and
society but to the nation as well.
To understand this threat, we need to have a brief look at the history of journalism in India. In
the 18th Century, the first Indian newspaper was published- The Bengal Gazette. Although it
was controlled by the British Authority, Indian national press played a pivotal role in conveying
the news of freedom struggle to the masses. This cemented faith among Indians that media or
press is dependable and credible institution. Post-independence, the makers of our Constitution
deliberately skipped the mention of Press (the official word for Journalism) in our constitution
as they believed that the press can pave a path for itself on its own. This reflects their faith in
press and its power. Post-independence, the first channels to be telecasted were DoorDarshan1 or
DD1 and DoorDarshan News or DD News. Although Government of India founded it and still
runs it, the news reported is, in my opinion, unbiased as compared to private news channels.
They neither praise government nor bash them. They simply report the facts as they are. Even
today, DD News is far ahead in terms of viewership than the other news channels which are
broadcasted in India as per BARC report.

Abhishek Mishra

Post liberalization of the 90s, the Government of India allowed private and foreign
broadcasters to broadcast and operate in India. Lots of Private entities came up with their own
channels as they sensed a chance to make greater profits. NDTV India, Aaj Tak, Star News, Zee
TV were among the first channels to come up. During the early 2000s, the concept of TRP
started taking over the electronic media. TRP is Television Rating Points and it determines the
viewership of a channel. Higher TRP means more viewership which attracts ad agencies. This
cycle generates revenue for the news channels.
The problem primarily lies in the revenue model. News Channels are working on the
same model of daily soaps. The ad-based revenue model is ideal for them but not fit for media.
To generate more revenue, News channels are forced to seek TRP. More TRP means more ads.
What this TRP game has done to media is not a fact hidden fact. To attract more ads and
viewership, instead of reporting facts, news anchors started coming up with their own version of
news reports. Many times, these reports were cooked up and incendiary. An instance of
provocative and sensationalizing simple facts is that in 2011, there was a massive revolution
against corruption in India which was led by Anna Hazare, a social activist. Arvind Kejriwal, an
RTI activist, who was his closest aide at that time, issued a statement. And this is how the two of
the prominent dailies The Hindu and The Times of India reported it.

Abhishek Mishra

Bharat Rakshak, a blog about Indian media and defense, compared them and the
difference is evident. The Hindu reported the statement as it is, but The Times of India twisted
the statement to spice it up. However, if the reader is ignorant of the statement made by Arvind
Kejriwal and gets to know about it via TOI, then their opinion is most likely to develop against
Kejriwal.
Print Media has a wider outreach than electronic media so it needs to maintain its
credibility. Sensationalism can be used to feed a certain section of society what it wants to listen
or read, or what a certain party wants the people to believe. In India, most of the Political parties
come up with their own newspaper to influence more people, which are used to highlight them
and bash other parties like INCs mouthpiece is newspaper Sandesh and Shiv Senas
mouthpiece is Saamana. Such newspapers were awarded a new term- Mouthpiece.
If certain newspapers are mouthpieces of certain organizations, then our electronic media
is not far behind. Why own a single channel when you can own the whole media house? A

Abhishek Mishra

research article by Newslaundary reveals shocking facts that almost every media house is
owned by some political party either directly or indirectly. Like Zee News is owned by Subash
Chandra, President, Essel Group. Subash Chandra was an aspirant of BJP ticket to contest 2014
Loksabha elections from Hisar. NDTVs 29.8% stake is owned by Abhey Oswal, who is father in
law of Naveen Jindal, a Congress Leader and Prannoy Roy along with his wife Radhika Roy
jointly hold 32.26% shares of NDTV. Radhika Roy is the sister of Brinda Karat who is
Rajyasabha MP on CPIs ticket. So virtually every news channel is inclined to some political
party.
Next concern which is closely related to biases of Media is twisting of facts which leads
to Sensationalism. Nitin Mishra in his article The Sensational stories of Indian Media for
Curious Indian, a blog dedicated to Indian history and current affairs, described the Indian
medias obsession with sensationalizing and TRP as:
Another unique thing about media is that unlike other private businesses where increasing
competition results in better products for the consumer, increase in competition in media
results in lowering of standards. At least thats what Indian media has proven. In the mad
race for more viewership/TRPs, media resorts to sensationalism and twisted,
manufactured news.
Sensationalism has deteriorated the quality and quantity of News. The news which can yield
most viewership is exaggerated to attract more TRP. The concept of National and Anti-National
has been sensationalized by media up to such an extent that is has turned ugly. Sensationalism is
being used as a tool to propagate specific agendas like jingoism and hatred against minorities.
Print media despite all its flaws, in my opinion, is still credible. Apologizing and owning up for a
mistake or factual error is still prevalent in print media. Whereas the memory of electronic media

Abhishek Mishra

is short-lived. In the era of tabloid news, twitter, a social networking website, has become the
latest source for news. The concept of Ground Reporting is vanishing rapidly. 7-8000
twitteraties can make trend headlines by #tagging something as stated by Priyanka Dayal in her
article for Vuelio, a blog. Trending on twitter means a lot of people are talking about the tagged
subject at that instance. Although sometimes it can be very helpful to know what the internet
users or netizens are upto. For example, on 25th April 2015, Nepal was hit by an 8.1 magnitude
earthquake. Being the neighboring country, India lent a helping hand to Nepal. Everything was
fine till this point. But after this Indian media took the charge. They literally started portraying
India as the savior of Nepal and Nepal as a state of India. This enraged the Nepalese and
#GoHomeIndianMedia started trending on Twitter. For the first time, Indian media was asked to
leave by a foreign nation. The very next day #DontComeBackIndianMedia was trending on
twitter which meant that even Indians were fed up of their media.
Earlier, we had reporters. Later, they evolved into News Readers. Then came News
Anchors. And now those News Anchors are trying to become News Makers. Radia Tapes
exposed the dubious nature of some of our prominent News Anchors. Radia Tapes were a
collection of telephonic conversations between Nira Radia, an acquaintance of Telecom Minister
A. Raja (2008-09). The tapes revealed that Nira Radia used to some media persons to influence
the appointment of A. Raja as the telecom minister. The Jindal Groups sting report also caused
an uproar when they shot a sting operation of two of the most prominent reporters of an India
Media house. In the sting, the reporters seem to demand 100 crore advertising deal to stop news
of Jindal Groups involvement in the coal scam.
We, as citizens and collectively as a society, are responsible for this state of media apart
from the media itself because we are being served what we like and what we have appreciated.

Abhishek Mishra

Although some unbiased sources of news are coming up like Newslaundary and The
Lallantop. They are transparent regarding their ownership and are politically neutral. The
Lallantop, a web news portal, generates its revenue through great content and its website.
NewsLaundary is a News Agency primarily based on internet, primarily focuses on news
related to media and current affairs. Their revenue model is subscription based. Although they
provide news for free but to receive their newsletters you need to subscribe to them. It is quite
welcoming to have these media houses which are breathe of fresh air in the current scenario of
journalism.
If we want to make this institution credible, then we need to change ourselves too. We
need to look for unbiased news and should avoid watching sensationalized news. For example,
we often encounter news such as Our Army did this, our army did that. Whereas BBC, despite
being a British News Agency, reports it as The Royal British Army instead of ours(British).
More importantly, we need to understand the difference between making media accountable
versus making media independent. Can we conclude that Free Media and Independent
Media reflect the same meaning? Is nationalism of media justifiable? These are some of the
questions which are not easily answerable.

Abhishek Mishra

WORK CITED
Bharat Rakshak-Consortium of Indian Defence Website. Bharat Rakshak,
http://i55.tinypic.com/28844s4.jpg . Accessed 18 September 2016.
Dayal,Priyanka. How many tweets make a trend? Vuelio.http://www.vuelio.com/uk/blog/howmany-tweets-make-a-trend/ Accessed 21 Oct 2016.
DD News ahead of pvt English News Channels in Prime-time: BARC. Business Standard,
www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/dd-news-ahead-of-pvt-eng-news-channels-inprime-time-115121300439_1.html Accessed 15 October 2016.
Gupta,Saurabh.Congress Sacks Writer As Mouthpiece Criticises Sonia Gandhi, Jawaharlal
Nehru. NDTV. http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/congress-stumped-as-mouthpiece-criticisessonia-gandhi-jawaharlal-nehru-1259636 Accessed 15 October 2016.
Koshy,Ajo. How does TRP affect revenue. https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-TRPratings-affect-the-revenue-generated-by-the-TV-serials-channels/answer/Ajo-Koshy Accessed 15
October 2016.
Mishra, Nitin. The stories of Indian Media. Curious India.
http://curiousindian.com/2013/12/23/sensational-stories-indian-media/ Accessed 21 October
2016.
Newslaundary-Who owns your media? Newslaundary,
www.newslaundry.com/2014/02/05/who-owns-your-media-4/ Accessed 18 Sept 2016.

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Shall work for BJP candidates victory in Hisar-Subash Chandra. The Economic Times.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-09-11/news/53811380_1_bjp-candidate-bjpticket-subhash-chandra Accessed on 15 October 2016..
Sutar, Kamlesh , Damodar. Saamana cartoon row: BJP, Opposition demand apology from Shiv
Sena. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/shiv-sena-bjp-maharashtra-maratha-communitysaamana-cartoon-controversy-sanjay-raut-maharashtra-legislative-assembly/1/774737.html
Accessed 15 October 2016.