A Case Study of the Biased Leftist Media and Its Harmful Impact on Indian Democracy
- In Current Affairs
- 05:31 AM, Dec 06, 2018
- Adhish Kumar Sinha
The world perceives the media bias as a narrative reported in the certain manner away from the reality and the facts. In certain situations the media managers, producers and editors act as gatekeepers and allow certain items to get published and otherwise block others. Such reporting is under the lens of authorities. A biased medium does not send coherent messages. The biased media attacks political, religious, social and cultural contents of the nation or society to gain favourable outcomes. It misleads population though the social and financial undercurrents are hostile. And our leftist media ecosystem is choirmaster of this biased narrative.
The media bias of the leftist ecosystem comes under some predetermined forms. They gauge ideology in choice of specific news, political leanings in editorial columns, while they visualise propaganda. Here are a few examples:
- Deliberate oversight in the political story is an effective tool to insert bias in the news. They project a one-sided story to garner support. It is against the principle of journalism and immoral too. However, in India they do it often. Leftist newspapers or channels do not show certain news and keep on showing same items in rotation
- For straight forward news sometimes the tone of the story implants a bias. This is a brilliant technique identified with left leanings of media and one channel has mastery of twisting it
- Sensationalising a trivial issue is another method to create biased news. On a day in absence of serious news the channel floats relative unimportant news for TRP rating.
- Some stories media labels as per their convenience. Creating the opinion is not the reporter’s work but of the reader or viewer
Independent India was for long a victim of biased foreign Media reporting from the same liberal leftist ecosystem. The actual picture differed from the one that was painted outside. It was no longer a country of Kings, elephants and snake charmers, but they projected the same for the long time. Foreign leftist media ecosystem blamed Indians for their rigid religious and economic outlook for their prolonged poverty. With more subtle details available today we can say the real reason of our poverty is two hundred years of ruthless exploitation by Brits. Another biased piece by liberal leftist media ecosystem is communal harmony in India. Some media coverage depict in India in a way that there is an unabridged chasm between different communities, however peaceful co-existence is the soul of India and a ground reality. In, 1943 in Bengal famine British rule forced two news papers The Statesman and Amrit Bazaar Patrika to float biased news that the food grain shortage was due to hoarding and there is no shortage to curb the anger among the people. In reality, there was a shortage of grain supply.
The largest crucible of biased Media is China, which is ruled by leftist communists. Not a single word can be spoken or written against the permission of state. The stories circulated are far from realistic. There are negative undercurrents smothered and are not allowed to propagate further due to fear of the uprising. For outsiders the picture projected is all fine. But the sporadic news of disturbances in minority-dominated provinces of China or in Tibet tell the world that not every thing are right. During, the cultural revolution of Mao many people lost their lives in China but the media did not report the events. In the seventies, USSR (now Russia), fell short of grain production way beyond the targets. USSR had to import the large quantity of grain from their cold war arch rivals USA. The Russian media (Pravada) behind tight fisted communist regime continued to send all well signals to the world. Biased media is the tool to hide the failures of the state and commotion resulted by them.
A biased medium is in the hard hold of the state control or under censorship. The censor ship may vary in degrees. The scale of censorship also varies in official stated and enforced in actual. The state uses media reach their ulterior motives, with biased media. An administered media parrots the voices of authority. Reports in these conditions may not be factual and authentic. In a single party rule or in an authoritarian state, we see the government controlled biased media. In China, North Korea and Myanmar media are under Government controls and tows official lines for coverage. The bias in media is profound in these countries and thus does not convey the neutral perception. We see that biased media always smothers the real public opinion and unable to convey correct facts to the public. This not only creates the atmosphere of suspicion but also set a fear psychosis among the masses. In countries with biased media have poor human rights records too. However, this discussion is more related to authoritarian States.
In a democracy the picture is different. The oldest democracies of Europe and USA, world consider that media is unbiased. There is complete freedom of reporting and state does not intervene in media coverage except reporting where it may hurt national security. Bob Woodward followed the robbery news that led to famous Watergate investigation in USA and President Nixon lost his chair. In these countries independent watchdogs monitor the media. These countries have the two-party system and both the party lines hold equal amount followers. Media for its own survival has to take in account both the viewpoints and public opinion in projection.
However liberal leftist biased media raises its ugly head in USA too. Post-war American politics is transactional. It has given rise to lobbies. Lobbies have their self interests for which they need government support. Strong lobbies with sound financial backing support political parties in the election so that their interests materialise through government policies. These lobbies fund the media too so to propagate messages according to their interests even though the ground level picture is very different.
But in the new-formed democracies in Africa and Asia things are different. Democratic process is evolving here, the single party ruled for the long time in these nations, these parties were mostly far-left communist dictatorial in nature. In absence of development, free enterprise and lack of public awareness staying in power or near to it is lucrative. People in power then patronise media surrounding them in return media propagates the biased news favouring to them. The major media portals become mouthpieces of ruling party and lose their independence. They display an insidious political propaganda under honest journalism.
In India the patronising of leftist media ecosystem has gone to an ugly extent and a discontented voter though voted out grand old party from the power, but most of the media houses have remained with old overthrown party. This is because over the time many media houses have become puppets of that party and in a state of lethargy and did not read the mood of the voters.
Media in its powerful expression has entered our personal lives. Each of us want to hear a news right for us. The words, shoots and coverage chosen to suit the ideology of the media. In the last campaign in USA for a same event the conservative Fox news and other liberal channels reported as suited to them. This is soothing for the hardcore supporters. But confusion is in for the undecided. It is a right of fence sitter to get a clear picture to choose. The mob lynching cases reported in recent times in India has a similar overtone. Anti-establishment media houses trying to paint that the policies have been anti minorities, however most related to crime. Not able to decide upon the certain issue is dangerous to democracy. An able citizen blinded and uninformed about issues surrounding to him is a liability.
Wealth is creeping in all walks of our lives and is visible in leftist media operations too. The TRPs, readership and viewership ratings are indicators of media performance. Interested parties pump money in best performing sources to shore up support and sway the opinion. It muddles the picture and blurs the decision making capacity of the viewer. The incidents of paid news in India carried by leftist ecosystem have had the same effect and the Election Commission had to bar such activities forth with. The paid news was rotting the Indian democracy. The biased media influences the voters and voting choices, a major game changer in a democracy.
The distorted media input by leftist ecosystem are harmful to democratic value system. No doubt all stakeholders may float their perspective for the consumption of the common man. But the perspective and reality must come out clear. Otherwise society may toe a strong but an incorrect opinion leading to colossal damages to institutions and processes. This is destructive in long term.
Healthy journalism is the open exchange of views. Receiving objective news is the right of a citizen. Deliberate distortions are not permissible. An honest journalist expected to put forward the true picture to the reader or viewer. It is up to the masses to build the opinion on the unbiased information. So the journalists have an important role to play in public life B G Tilak, Lala Lajpatrai were fearless journalists, they never thought of rewards or accolades for their work. They were the supporting pillars of clear opinion and straight forward thought but unfortunately in our history text books they are categorised as extremists (from 4th standard - till date I have been trying to understand the need of categorisation of freedom fighters as extremist or moderates). Media enslaved by money and power need few bravehearts to keep the house in order.
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