MUMBAI, May 1, 2015:
Blasting the trend of ‘tabloidisation’ of Indian news channels, veteran anchor
and NDTV co-founder Dr Prannoy Roy has called for stricter anti-defamation
laws.
 |
Prannoy Roy receiving the Press Club Mumbai
Lifetime Achievement Award from Railway Minister
Suresh Prabhu. Star TV CEO Uday Shankar looks on. Pic from NDTV.Com |
Referring to the
increasing levels of sensationaliation of news among English and even Indian
language TV news channels, Dr Roy cautioned that the ‘ghastly tsunami’ of
tabloid journalism will spell death knell for the electronic medium and as it
impacts credibility of news reporting.
He was speaking at The
Press Club-Mumbai’s national media awards event last night acknowledging the
Lifetime Achievement Award bestowed on him.
Dr Roy stunned the
audience when he cited the example of a woman news anchor of a Hindi channel
who annolunced: ‘break ke baad, rape story’.
Interestingly, Dr Roy’s
critical comments come close on the heels of Prasar Bharati Chairman A Surya
Prakash’s statement at a Public Relations Council of India (PRCI) event at New
Delhi where the latter expressed concern at inadequate self-regulatory
mechanism among media houses and their race for TRPs. Mr Prakash suggested that
the Press Council must be empowered with strong legal provisions to deal with
all media, including TV news channels.
Dr Roy went a step
ahead and said there should be stricter anti-defamation laws than what they are
today. But he hastened to add that this
aspect should be dealt by legal machinery and judiciary. The government should
have no role at all, he emphasized.
“Indian media thrives
on punishment-free environment,” the veteran news anchor said and opined that
journalists are getting slack. It will be tough to recover once they lose
credibility and the recent political developments amply demonstrated this, he
said.
He felt that the
current legal framework is inadequate to deal with defamation cases which keep
piling up and prosecution taking years and years.
Pointing out that the
news channels are adopting the tabloid culture apparently to capture eyeballs,
he equaled eye-ball chasers to ambulance chasers – a term used for lawyers who
seek business at accident spots and hospitals.
Continuously harping on
tabloidisation of TV journalism, Dr Roy felt that the advertisers are also
equally to blame for encouraging sensationalism. Advertising planners must
build an element of ‘quality-with-credibility’ in their spends while they too
chase eyeballs to capture the viewers’ attention, he said.
In this context, he
pointed out that NDTV does not practice tabloid journalism and that the channel
won the coveted Most Trusted Media House award for the second year in
succession.
He cautioned the young
journalists against getting “too close to the sources”. This could also impact
credibility as there is a danger of the news story emanating from such
‘sources’ getting coloured.
Dr Roy strongly batted
for Net Neutrality, but said the culture of “unrestricted anonymity” of posting
on social media is a big threat to the society. Promoters of social media sites
should build in a technology structure to raise alarms when the anonymous
people post comments that could hurt religious or cast sentiments of the people
that could lead to violence and communal disturbances.
Railway Minister Suresh
Prabhu, who was the chief guest at the event, suggested that media houses
should work on ‘Making News’ while chasing ‘Breaking News’. A lot of positive
news left uncovered in this new trend, he said.
The union government,
he said, is committed to freedom of press and that at no stage does it want to
suppress dissent. In a vibrant democracy like India, media has to be
anti-establishment to ensure proper checks and balances, he said.
The showstopper of
sorts for the evening was interesting panel discussion – “Celebrating the Voice
of Dissent- participated by senior journalists Shekhar Gupta, former
Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Express and Srineevasan Jain of NDTV and Krishna
Prasad, Editor-in-Chief of Outlook. The discussion was moderated by Sachin
Kalbaug, the Editor of Mid-Day.
The media professionals
expressed concern at some politicians turning ‘mini dictators’ and trying to
threaten the freedom of speech.
During the awards
event, Dr Roy was felicitated with the Life Time Achievement Award by the
Railway Minister, along with CEO of Star TV Uday Shankar and Mumbai Press Club
President Prakash Akolkar.
Dr Roy was chosen for
the award for the yeomen service that he had done for TV journalism – and he
was selected from a shortlist of senior editors by a survey among 200
journalists all over India, and a final unanimous consideration by the Managing
Committee of the Mumbai Press Club. The previous recipients of Lifetime
Achievement award were late Vinod Mehta, Kuldip Nayar, N Ram, and Mrinal Pande.
The RedInk awards –
into its fifth edition - was held at the Jamshed Bhabha Auditorium of the
National Centre for Performing Awards at Nariman Point here, which among others
was attended by crème da la crème of Indian journalism. Top media practitioners
across the country were present at the glittering event, which this time around
was themed ‘Celebration of Dissent’.
The evening started
with two-minute silence to mourn the death of thousands of people in a
devastating earthquake in Nepal and parts of India including Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh and West Bengal.
“The journey of the
RedInk awards in the last five years has been thrilling. We started with two
categories and today we have close to a dozen categories. It has grown in size
and has been appreciated across the country. This year, we have received 800
plus entries and that speaks for itself,” Press Club Chairman Gurbir Singh
said.
The RedInk Award for
Journalist of the Year, instituted for the first time, has gone to Sreenivasan
Jain of NDTV for his consistent investigative work epitomized in his series ‘Truth versus Hype’ and
other programmes. Similarly, Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief of Times Now, was
selected as the Impact Editor of the Year for his ability to capture eyeballs
and expand audience reach with his ‘News Hour’ show.
Scroll.in was be
awarded the ‘Best News Start-Up of the Year’ for scaling up its influence
rapidly as an alternative source of news and features.
Besides, nearly 20
journalists were given awards for their best stories in print and TV – which
was judged by an elite panel of judges for categories including Business,
Crime, Environment, Health & Wellness, Human Rights, Lifestyle &
Entertainment, Politics, Science and Innovation, Sports and The Big Picture.
Star India is the
Presenting Partner for Mumbai Press Club Redink Awards for Excellence in Journalism
2015. The awards partners are Aditya Birla Group, Indiabulls Housing, Glenmark
Pharmaceuticals, Zee Entertainment, Eros International, Seven Hills Hospitals,
Lunkad Investments and JSW Steel.
Winners of Mumbai Press
Club Redink Awards 2015 are:
BUSINESS:
Print Mr Dinesh Narayanan, The Caravan
Magazine
Television Mr Dibang,ABP News
CRIME
Print Ms Leena Reghunath, The Caravan
Magazine & Mr Vinod Kumar
Menon, Mid Day
Television Mr Tarun Nangia & Mr Dipu Rai,Zee
Business
ENVIRONMENT
Print Mr Sharad Vyas, Mid Day
Television Mr Umesh Kumavat, ABP News & Mr Rajat
Singh, Aaj Tak
HEALTH & WELLNESS
Print Mr Johnson Poovanthuruth, Deepika
& Ms Nikita Saxena, Caravan
Television Ms Vrushali Purandare, TV -9
HUMAN RIGHTS
Print Mr Salil Tripati, The Caravan
Magazine
Television Mr Shams Tahir Khan, Aaj Tak
LIFESTYLE &
ENTERTAINMENT
Print Mr Tanul Thakur, The Big Indian
Picture
Television Mr Jujhar Singh, NewX
POLITICS
Print Mr Dinesh Narayanan, The Caravan
Magazine
Television Mr Jitendra Dixit, ABP News
SCIENCE &
INNOVATION
Print Mr Shamsheer Yousaf, Fountain Ink Magazine
SPORTS
Print Mr Rahul Bhatia, The Caravan
Magazine
Television Ms Suprita Das, NDTV
THE BIG PICTURE
Winner Mr Hari Adivarekar,
Yahoo Originals
Runner-up Mr Hemant R Padalkar, DNA
IMPACT EDITOR OF THE
YEAR : Mr Arnab Goswami Times Now
NEWS START-UP OF THE
YEAR : scroll.in
JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
: Mr Sreenivasan Jain, NDTV
LIFE-TIME ACHIEVEMENT
AWARD : Dr Prannoy Roy, NDTV
