INDIA MEDIA FORUM

February 11-12, 1999, New Delhi • February 15, 1999, Bombay

 Board of Trustees Contents Page
Charles L. Overby, Chairman
and
Print and broadcast media thrive in largest democracy 1
Chief Executive Officer
Peter S. Prichard, President Outlook mixed for English-language press in India
as native-tongue publications show strong growth 2
Allen H. Neuharth, Founder

Harry W. Brooks Jr. Suspicious press in India, Pakistan retards

John E. Heselden prospects of peace between border enemies 3
Madelyn P. Jennings
Malcolm R. Kirschenbaum
Bette Bao Lord Diversity of languages, dialects poses challenge
Brian Mulroney
Will Norton Jr.
for press in India amid a growing literacy rate 4
John C. Quinn
Carl T. Rowan Ownership of India’s media, a hot-button topic,
Josefina A. Salas-Porras
John Seigenthaler
may be rendered moot by the Internet’s inroads 5

The Freedom Forum World Center

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Tel: 852-2596-0018 sity as it is vast in size leading members of the media in India and
Fax: 852-2598-8818 and population, India Pakistan for discussions, interviews and
was a natural choice for roundtables Feb. 11-15 in New Delhi and
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Stanhope Place first international media tives the opportunity to talk about their prob-
London, W2 2HH, United Kingdom Chris Wells, senior
forum of 1999. lems, the possible solutions, the peril and the
Tel: 44-171-262-5003 The theme for this promise they face on the eve of a new century.
vice president/
Fax: 44-171-262-4631 year’s forums, “Media at This report shares the experiences and per-
international of
Latin American Center The Freedom Forum the Millennium,” res- spectives of conference participants.
Avenida del Libertador 602 onates in India, where The Freedom Forum’s goal is to help the
Piso 23 “B” the news media are confronting many oppor- news media and the public understand one
1001 Buenos Aires, Argentina tunities and challenges: The country’s literacy another better, a mission that is accom-
Tel: 54-1-814-5005 rate is climbing; its population is nearing 1 plished, in part, through conferences, work-
Fax: 54-1-814-5006
billion; newspaper circulation is up, especial- shops and programs around the world. In
Order publications by phone: ly among non-English newspapers; media coming months The Freedom Forum will
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 Media in India: an overview
■ The Indian press is, for the most part, inde-
pendent and privately owned. A few news-
papers are linked, officially or ideologically,
to political parties. Owners can and do dic-
tate editorial policy. Both the English and
the “language press” (non-English) tend to
support the Indian government on foreign
policy issues.
■ Newspaper readership is steady, despite the
rapid growth of electronic media.
Newspapers remain relatively inexpensive,
and the print media, especially the English-
language press, are feistier and more apt to
criticize the government on domestic issues
than their electronic counterparts.
■ India boasts more than 43,000 newspapers
and magazines published in English and
dozens of other languages. Hindi publica-
tions have a 36% share of the total circula-
Newspaper circulation in India is 32 million daily. tion of newspapers and magazines; English
publications have a 17% share. The Urdu
press is the third largest. Other major lan-
guage newspapers with a circulation of at

Print and broadcast media least 100,000 are in Tamil, Malayalam,

Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telegu, Kannada
and Punjabi.

thrive in largest democracy ■ India’s language press is booming. The past

20 years have seen a remarkable growth,
with circulation trends pointing up.
The news media in India are thriving. Newspaper circulation ■ In 1997, the Prasar Bharati Act was en-
and penetration are growing rapidly, and in the past few years inde- acted, giving BBC-style autonomy to the for-
pendent satellite and cable television have exploded. merly state-controlled TV and radio net-
Newspaper circulation is 32 million daily. Television viewership works, Doordarshan and All India Radio. By
is estimated at 300 million. But radio remains the most popular early 1999, a draft broadcasting bill, which
source of news and information. All India Radio, once government would provide a regulatory framework for the
controlled but now operated under a BBC-style autonomy, reaches industry, was awaiting action.
97% of India’s population. ■ Private cable and satellite television reach
Although the English-language press is influential among gov- the entire country; two dozen satellites
ernment policy-makers, the “language press” (non-English) is beam signals to India, and some sub-
growing in popularity and remains the shaper of public opinion and scribers have access to as many as 50
Arnold Zeitlin, director of local-level policy. Only a few newspapers are aligned with a politi- channels.
The Freedom Forum Asian cal party. ■ Television is assuming tremendous impor-
Center Media ownership in India, as elsewhere, is consolidating. tance in the country, especially among the
Several major publishers not only print newspapers in English and growing middle class. Viewership is estimat-
other languages but also are moving increasingly into television and the Internet. ed at nearly 300 million.
Indian publications freely report bad news, and foreign correspondents often follow the
■ Radio is the most popular means of infor-
spot-news leads of the local media. So most often it is the stories of strife that make their way
mation and entertainment, particularly for
into the international media, perpetuating an image abroad of India as a place of poverty and
the rural and illiterate population. All India
violence.
Radio has a countrywide network of region-
Correspondent Seema Sirohi of The Telegraph says many Indian journalists need more al broadcasting and programming centers
training in the basics of reporting. That shortcoming among members of the work force is com- as well as a national channel that broad-
pounded by the fact that there are only a few journalism schools to prepare the thousands of casts in Hindi, Urdu and English.
journalists needed to staff India’s newsrooms.
Against that backdrop The Freedom Forum went to India to explore how the country’s
media are preparing for the challenges of the new century.

MEDIA AT THE MILLENNIUM: INDIA 1

Outlook mixed for English-language press in India
as native-tongue publications show strong growth
NEW DELHI — Two leading Indian newspa-
per editors, operating in a thriving market,
disagreed on the past, present and future of
the English-language press in India, but
agreed that newspapers will reach the next
millennium by giving readers what they want.
Dileep Padgaonkar, executive managing
editor of The Times of India, labeled as a myth
the notion that the English-language press is
elitist, rootless and out of sync with the mass-
es. He said that description comes from a
nationalistic agenda, which characterizes the
English press as “foreign” and “alien.”
His counterpart, Narendra Mohan, owner
of Dainik Jagran, a Hindi-language daily, said
the English-language press has never recov-
ered from the role it played in the years lead-
ing up to India’s independence in 1947 after
300 years of British rule.
“The English-language press was hostile to
the freedom movement,” he said during the Competition for readers is fierce and readership is highly concentrated in the country’s metropolitan
opening session of the India Media Forum, areas. There are nine English-language newspapers in New Delhi alone.
moderated by CNN’s Bernard Kalb.
After independence, the English press
the upper house of Parliament, said the English “Readers will only come if you produce an
“tried to change colors” but couldn’t, Mohan
press was never a binding thread for Indians. He attractive newspaper,” he said.
said, whereas the so-called “language press”
also championed India’s pluralism. “The bind- Padgaonkar said the biggest challenge for
maintained the color of a nationalistic press.
ing feeling is that India is a rich and pluralis- newspapers in the next millennium would be
The English press, Padgaonkar said, cele-
tic society,” he said. “Nationalism is a feeling.” reaching the “large number of people who
brates the pluralism of India, the idea that all
The English press still gets credit for influ- can’t read or who do not fall [within the
Indians harbor a layer of language, history and
encing policy in India, but the language press reach] of the press.” India’s population of
regional identity. He called India a “mongrel
seems to have the upper hand in shaping pub- about 984 million makes the South Asian
nation” with each individual bearing multiple
lic opinion. The Indian constitution recog- nation the world’s largest democracy. The
identities.
nizes 18 official lauguages. challenge becomes clearer when the country’s
But Mohan, who belongs to the ruling polit-
The Hindi press accounts for 36% of the literacy rate of 52% is considered, along with
ical party, Bharatiya Janata, and is a member of
newspaper market in India. English-language the fact that 93% of newspaper readership is
newspapers control 17%. Newspapers printed within India’s metropolitan areas.
in the other 100 or so languages and dialects But Padgaonkar is optimistic about adapt-
share the remainder of the readership. ing to readers’ changing interests. He supports
Since the early 1960s, newspaper circula- the shift from hard news, such as politics, to
tion and penetration have grown steadily, softer news, such as sports, entertainment,
especially among India’s language press. fashion, food and music. In India, newspapers
Newspaper penetration rose to 35 per 1,000 are adjusting to what the emerging middle
people in 1997 from 12 per 1,000 in 1967. class wants, he said.
Circulation increased fivefold to 32 million. A speaker in the audience, Anita Pratap, a
Mohan predicted that many newspapers former South Asia bureau chief for CNN and
would lose their financial footing and fold in now a free-lancer, decried the media’s obses-
the coming years. Those newspapers that pro- sion with politics and lifestyle.
duce content balanced between intellectual “You cannot address the problems in this
Newspaper owner Narendra Mohan says “readers news and entertainment will be successful, he country without health and education report-
will only come if you produce an attractive said. His approach was to copy USA TODAY. ing,” she told Padgaonkar after the discussion.
newspaper.”

2 MEDIA AT THE MILLENNIUM: INDIA

Suspicious press in India, Pakistan retards
prospects of peace between border enemies
NEW DELHI — Suspicious and hostile media
on both sides of the India-Pakistan border
have hindered the peace process between the
enemies, editors from both nations said.
Najam Sethi, founder and editor of The
Friday Times, a weekly based in Lahore,
Pakistan, said “the role the press plays in both
countries in reinforcing prejudices and old
enmities” makes “the press part of the prob-
lem rather than part of the solution.”
India has fought three wars with Pakistan
in the 50 years since Pakistan was created
from a part of India. Last year, each country
tested nuclear weapons, which further rattled
nerves in the region and around the world.
With the free press that exists in both
countries, Sethi said, journalists could build Najam Sethi, a Pakistani, says the media in his Vinod Mehta, an Indian, says the press could
bridges between the two nations. “Unfor- country and in India are part of the problem, mobilize public opinion to come out in support of
tunately, the press has not played that role,” “reinforcing prejudices and old enmities.” moving the nations toward peace.
he said.
As an example of the undermining role
the press plays, journalist Vinod Mehta Because of a long history of deep mistrust liberal” than Pakistani television, he said,
recalled negotiations in 1989 between the and misunderstanding, politicians in both which is influenced by a conservative Islamic
prime ministers of the two countries, at countries refuse to budge, Mehta said. He said society. Sethi described Pakistani television
which agreements were signed establishing newspapers can fill the breach and mobilize as “xenophobic, emotional, irrational and sen-
trade and other relations. But the Indian public opinion toward reaching a peace agree- timental.”
press, suspecting that India had given away ment. “Politicians in both countries need a “The most liberal ideas are expressed
too much in the negotiations, pestered the kick in the pants,” he said. through Indian English-language television,”
prime minister until Sethi said an important beginning would he said.
the agreements were be for the Indian Sethi also said that Indian television helps
abandoned. They and Pakistani press empower Pakistani women. “Indian women
remain unenforced
today.
“The older genera- to be available in
both countries. He
are freer, more articulate and more developed
than Pakistani women,” he said. “This has an
If the agreements
had gone into effect,
tion[of journalists] also encouraged
younger journalists
enormous impact on Pakistani women seek-
ing their rights.”
Pakistanis would be
able today to buy
are prisoners of to begin to cover
each other’s coun-
The two editors, who are friends, also crit-
icized coverage of foreign correspondents in
Indian newspapers
and other periodicals
the past.” tries. “The older
generation are pris-
the region. “The Western media portray India
and Pakistan as a nuclear flash point, as two
in Pakistan, and — Najam Sethi, editor, The Friday Times oners of the past,” irresponsible countries with their fingers on
Indians would be able he said. the button,” Mehta said.
to buy Pakistani publi- Television origi- Sethi said Western media fail to cover
cations in India. But because that is not pos- nating in the two countries cannot be stopped positive stories coming out of Pakistan, such
sible, it makes it difficult “to look at each at the border, however. And because Pakistani as the growth of human-rights groups and
other through each other’s eyes,” Sethi said. television is government-controlled and the emerging rights of women. But both edi-
Mehta, founder and editor of the Indian television is autonomous, Indian tele- tors said their own media offer lots of nega-
newsweekly Outlook in New Delhi, blamed a vision has greater potential to influence opin- tive news about their own countries, provid-
“lunatic fringe in … the press. It’s more in the ion, Sethi said. ing “ammo for the Western media,” as Mehta
non-English press, but it’s also present in the English-language Indian television is put it.
English press.” “more progressive, rational, enlightened and

MEDIA AT THE MILLENNIUM: INDIA 3

Among the journalists participating in the panel discussion, “Media of Many Languages: Challenges Covering India’s Diversity,” were (from left) Anita Pratap, a
former CNN bureau chief in New Delhi; Shekhar Gupta, editor of the English-language Indian Express newspaper; Mohan Chiragi, editor of Qaumi Awaz, an
Urdu-language newspaper; and Nalini Singh, a producer and director for TVLive.

Diversity of languages, dialects poses challenge

for press in India amid a growing literacy rate
NEW DELHI — Increasing literacy and “lin- Languages: Challenges Covering India’s editors to run those kinds of stories, she said.
guistic colonialism” may reshape the media- Diversity.” English-language newspapers are acknow-
diversity landscape in India, two leading edi- The Urdu-language press is the third- ledged as the news outlets that influence the
tors said. largest (after Hindi and English) and mostly decision-makers in society and government.
“As more and more Indians send their serves Muslims, who make up about 11% of But in recent years, the non-English or
children to English schools and the local lan- India’s population. Hindu-owned newspapers “language press” has been growing much faster
guages [are given less] importance in the cur- often take a negative view of minorities, espe- than the English press. If the English press is
riculum, fewer children will have the motiva- cially Muslims, according to the United States said to influence the policy-makers, the lan-
tion to do any reading in their mother tongue,” Information Service guage press is said to
said Mammen Mathew, editor and managing in New Delhi. influence public opin-
director of India’s largest newspaper, the “People don’t ion.
Malayam-language Malayala Manorama. pay much attention “The greatest A similar situa-
“The greatest challenge for Indian newspa- to the Urdu press,” tion exists in televi-
pers in the next century will come from the said Mohan Chiragi, challenge for sion, said Nalini
slow march of linguistic colonialism.” editor of the coun- Singh, executive pro-
The editor of the nation’s largest English- try’s largest Urdu Indian newspapers ducer and managing
language newspaper, Shekhar Gupta of The newspaper, Qaumi director of TVLive,
Indian Express, agreed that as literacy Awaz. “They think it [will be] linguistic which produces news
increases, language diversity will decrease. is just a language for programs for state-
“People who become more literate [will see to Muslims.” Chiragi colonialism.” owned television. The
it that] their children will choose a more said part of his news- — Mammen Mathew, editor, Malayala Manorama arrival of cable and
widely spoken language.” But he said it could paper’s mission is to satellite service in
be English or it could be Hindi, which is dom- reflect the country’s India over the past
inant among the 18 official languages recog- diversity. nine years triggered explosive growth in televi-
nized in the country’s constitution. Anita Pratap, former CNN bureau chief in sion. “The greatest growth has taken place in
Diversity, a source of India’s strength and New Delhi, said the media should avoid non-English (programming),” she said.
pride, is reflected throughout the country in stereotypes and the “day-to-day grind” to The English press and the language press
language, religion, skin color, and social and report the issues facing India. need each other, Gupta said. “Most people in
economic status. She said India is more than a land of small towns and villages converse in their own
“I don’t think there is a country in the poverty with cows roaming the streets. For languages. So they understand the media in
world that’s more diverse than India,” said example, she said, the media “have been their languages.” If they are to understand an
Jack Maxwell Hamilton, dean of the Manship ignoring a story that India has a huge middle issue, it must be reported in the local lan-
School of Mass Communication at Louisiana class” estimated at 250 million to 300 million. guage. If government needs to know about the
State University and an author of books and Also ripe for coverage, she said, is the eco- local issues, the story must be published in
articles on the Third World. He was the mod- nomic and cultural diversity of India. But “you English. “So unless you combine the two you
erator for the discussion titled “Media of Many have to make it interesting” if you want your never make impact,” he said.

4 MEDIA AT THE MILLENNIUM: INDIA

Ownership of India’s media, a hot-button topic,
may be rendered moot by the Internet’s inroads
NEW DELHI — Journalism in India started
with a big lie in bold type, a publisher from a
longtime Indian newspaper family said.
The first newspaper in India was the
Bengal Gazette, founded in Calcutta in 1817
by the British East India Company. The week-
ly commercial newspaper boasted that it was
“open to all parties and influenced by none.”
“That was the biggest lie,” said
Mammem Mathew, fourth-generation pub-
lisher of the 111-year-old Malayala Manorama,
a Malayam-language newspaper. The British
occupied India for 300 years before the South
Asian nation achieved independence in 1947.
Mathew said it wasn’t until 1919 when
Mohandas Gandhi, the father of India, was a
newspaper editor that Indian journalism
began to come into its own.
Today, media ownership in India remains
controversial and the role of the media unclear.
For N. Ravi, editor of The Hindu, the type
of ownership doesn’t matter so long as the
media are “in Indian hands, not foreign hands.”
For Justice P.B. Sawant, chairman of the Clockwise, from top left: N. Ravi, editor of The Hindu; Justice P.B. Sawant of the Press Council of India;
Press Council of India, the independence of and Mammem Mathew, publisher of the Malayalam-language Malayala Manorama newspaper.
newspapers would be assured if they were
employee-owned and not beholden to a pub-
lisher’s agenda, which often includes business for political reasons. “The media are part of ship structure as an alternative. As press
interests outside the newspaper. the political system and part of the democrat- council chairman, the former judge runs a gov-
“Freedom of the press is not the freedom ic fabric of the nation,” he said. ernment-supported organization that investi-
of owners. It is the freedom of the people to be Ravi’s newspaper, The Hindu, is an gates complaints about the press. But the
informed,” he said. English-language daily owned by the Hindi council has no enforcement powers and its
For Mathew, publisher of India’s largest- Group. Most Hindi newspapers openly espouse decisions often go unreported in the media.
circulation newspaper, there is room for Hinduism, which is practiced by 82% of the Mathew, his opponent in the debate over
employee-owned newspapers, but he said Indian population. ownership, is a member of the press council
such cooperatives should not replace private Ravi also said no other restrictions should and also president of the Indian Newspaper
ownership. “That is a resounding no.” be put on ownership. He said the state should Society, an organization of newspaper owners.
The discussion on ownership was less pas- not encourage one type of ownership over As for the role of the media, Mathew quot-
sionate for Suman Dubey, Dow Jones & Co. another. ed the journalism philosophy of Gandhi, who
corporate representative in India. He said Sawant created controversy earlier this started two newspapers in 1919. Mathew said
issues of ownership would be less important in year when he said private ownership impedes Gandhi followed three tenets of journalism:
five years because media choices, including press freedom. According to Sawant, private ■ Understanding and voicing popular feelings.

Internet news, will be increasing. To illustrate owners often have other business interests, ■ Arousing desirable sentiments in people.

his point, he said, “Nobody talks about the which may tempt them to alter the news. ■ Fearlessly exposing wrongdoing.

ownership of radio.”
Dubey also said India “is too big and too
diverse for any one owner to control a segment
of the media.”
Ravi said he favors Indian-only ownership
“They may suppress certain information or
give some facts wrong” in order to further
other business interests, he told the forum.
“Therefore, it is necessary that we must have
diverse structures of ownership.”
Sawant suggested a cooperative owner-
“The role of the media has not changed
from what Gandhi enunciated,” Mathew said.
It was Gandhi and other early editors “who set
the trend for Indian journalism that holds for
our country today.”

MEDIA AT THE MILLENNIUM: INDIA 5

In Bombay and other cities, readers can choose from a variety of newspapers and magazines. Newspapers are published in dozens of languages and dialects.
Journalists see religion, new media, lax ethics
as threats; readers say the enemy is within
BOMBAY — Four prominent journalists
offered a daunting list of challenges the
nation’s media face in the next century, and
then heard a vocal audience fan the flames
with an intimidating list of its own.
Anil Dharker, a columnist for The Times of
India, said a strong movement toward a dom-
inant national religion threatens freedoms in
the country, including freedom of the press.
India is 82% Hindu and has a large Hindu
press, published in English and Hindi. Many
Hindi newspapers espouse nationalism and
promote Hinduism as the national religion.
Yet Dharker remained confident that most
newspapers would continue to support secu-
larism, which has been followed in India since
its independence from Britain in 1947.
Nirmam Shah, editor of the Gujarati-lan-
guage Gujarat Samachar, described a con-
cern echoed by newspaper editors the world
over: With so many sources of news today,
including cable and satellite television and
the Internet, how do you customize the news
so that consumers will buy your newspaper?
The editor of Femina, India’s largest-cir-
culation women’s magazine, said threats to
the standards of journalism and the ethics of
newcomers to the field were the biggest wor-
ries about the next century. Sathya Saran said
new journalists must be objective and not
6 MEDIA AT THE MILLENNIUM: INDIA
beholden to their personal identities, which
can be multifaceted in a country with the vast
religious, cultural, linguistic and economic
diversity of India. There are more than 100
languages and dialects spoken in India and
newspapers are published in dozens of them.
When moderator Bernard Kalb of CNN
asked journalists at the forum if they fear that
religious passion will get in the way of objec-
tive reporting, they said yes.
Aroon Tikekar, editor of the nation’s lar-
gest Marathi-language newspaper, Lokasatta,
said he fears that many regional-language
newspapers will close soon after the turn of
the century. He said the spectacular growth of
the so-called “language newspapers” since
independence was considered a healthy sign
of democracy. But many of those newspapers
were started for non-journalistic reasons, such
as to promote a political party. If they fail,
many people will lose their jobs, he said.
The list of challenges caused a former
American editor to quip: “I’m glad I’m not
editing a newspaper in India.” Peter S.
Prichard, former editor of USA TODAY and
the president of The Freedom Forum, said the
diversity of languages and cultures is “fasci-
nating, dazzling and bewildering to an out-
sider.” He said it would be difficult to have a
single medium “that pulls people together.”
Dharker added
the growing avail-
ability and popular-
ity of television to
his list of concerns.
He said there are
56 million TV sets
in India, and televi-
sion is becoming
the dominant medi-
um. He described Nirmam Shah, editor
the programming of a “language” news-
as almost totally paper, is concerned
entertainment. about losing readers to
Newspapers are other media.
responding to TV’s
challenge by running more entertainment
information, he said, which bodes ill for seri-
ous news coverage and analysis.
Members of the audience of about 100 had
a somewhat different agenda for the media in
the next century. When Kalb asked them to
name the biggest unreported stories in India,
they named government corruption and social
issues, such as population growth. They also
said the press focuses too much on celebrity
journalism.
Dharker conceded that the press might be
out of touch in a developing country like India
with a population of nearly 1 billion people,
▼
Page 7
Students get grounding in basics of ethics, diversity
BOMBAY — The young women at Sophia
Polytechnic taking a postgraduate communi-
cations course will begin their careers with
something most journalists in Bombay don’t
have — a journalism diploma.
Although Bombay is a major media center,
no school here offers a journalism degree. The
diploma from Sophia Shree B.K. Somani
Memorial Polytechnic, awarded after comple-
tion of a one-year course, is the closest thing,
“Ethics, like
perfection, is an
ideal. We ought
to strive to
achieve it.”
— Smruti Koppikar, assistant editor, Indian Express
Corruption in government often goes unreported, editor says
Continued from page 6
half of whom are illiterate. But, he added,
“Just because you happen to have, in this con-
text, the disadvantage of education, I don’t
think you are out of touch with reality.”
Another audience member got agreement
when she said government and industrial cor-
ruption was the most unreported story in India.
“When you have a rotten economy, it forces a
rotten democracy,” she said, implying that the
press should help straighten things out.
Corruption came up several times, with
Dharker at one point saying that 95% of the
corruption doesn’t get reported. He attrib-
uted the press’s dismal record partly to a lack
of a work ethic. “We don’t rock the boat too
easily,” he said. “You have icons and you don’t
topple them.” But, he added, “that attitude is
changing.”
Tikekar said Dharker’s characterization
was unfair to Indian journalists, especially to
the “language press.” He said the judiciary
and the police harass journalists to the point
that “unless you have an exceptionally good
said Smruti Koppikar, a professor at the
school.
“Anybody over 25 has probably not been to
journalism school,” said Koppikar, who is a
graduate of the school and an assistant editor
at Indian Express.
And with the Sophia Polytechnic diploma
comes a grounding in journalism ethics.
The private, Catholic, all-female school
run by nuns hosted a discussion on diversity
and ethics at its campus. The Freedom Forum
sponsored the session, attended by faculty
and students.
Koppikar, who led the discussion on
behalf of the faculty, said ethics instruction
Smruti Koppikar says students must be prepared
extends throughout the course. Of the 40 stu-
dents admitted every year, about five go into
for “a world that has no ethics.”
often have other business interests that affect
journalism. The rest take jobs in film, radio
and television production, still photography,
how they run their newspapers. Koppikar
cited as an example The Times of India, which
advertising or public relations.
“Ethics, like perfection, is an ideal,”
has interests in cement and real estate.
“Anything that affects [those] businesses
Koppikar said. “We ought to strive to achieve
it.”
affects The Times of India,” she said.
Real estate prices, she said, could affect
Students learn that newspaper owners how many journalists the newspaper hires or
▼
Page 8
case, the editors won’t allow
the story to run.”
A man in the audience
cited what he said was a U.N.
conference report on popula-
tion growth, which said India
is growing at a rate of 65,000
people a day. Only one news-
paper, Asian Age, reported
what that figure implied for
India, he said.
At times, the Indian jour-
nalists lamented the press’s
“obsession with politics,
which is the bane of the Editor Aroon Tikekar says Columnist Anil Dharker says
Indian press,” as Dharker harassment from police and the television, dominated by
said. The heavy emphasis on judiciary makes editors wary of entertainment, is becoming
political stories has been running some stories. the leading medium.
decreasing, while business
reporting is increasing.
But a woman in the audience said the papers with too much stress on celebrities,”
space once occupied by politics is giving way she said.
to entertainment, agreeing with a point made Dharker said there are no easy answers.
earlier by Dharker. “There’s an element of “The appeal of celebrity is extremely seductive.”
trivialization that is happening in the English
MEDIA AT THE MILLENNIUM: INDIA 7
Educators explore individual role in journalism ethics
NEW DELHI— Journalists who watched people tear up a playing field foundations.
recently to protest a cricket match between India and Pakistan faced ■ Not taking the word of the government at face value.
a difficult question, according to journalism professor W.A. Qazi of the Bali said there are “two kinds of ethics” — the observance of laws
Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). and the guidance of public morality and social norms.
The journalists dutifully reported the destruction. But, Qazi asked, The director of IIMC, J.S. Yadava, said journalism “as a profession
should they have stopped the protesters from damaging the field where has come of age in India.”
the two countries, political archrivals, were scheduled to play? Are they He said about 80 universities offer courses in journalism and mass
citizens first or journalists first? communication. “Many [journalism stu-
In a discussion with 21 local jour- dents] come perhaps for the glamour,
nalism educators, Qazi said freedom in quick success, influence and power the
India belongs to the individual, not to profession seems to bestow,” Yadava said.
the press as an institution. Individuals But, “prospective entrants to journalism
working in the press give the media should have the aptitude of a social judge
their freedom and are the focal point and a personality that would not easily
for ethical decision-making. succumb to pressures and temptations.”
Qazi’s view that ethics reside with A former public information officer in
the individual was shared by other India said the ethical values of the press
speakers, though no one attempted to have been diluted. I. Rammohan Rao, a
answer the question he posed. visiting faculty member at IIMC, blamed
Yoginder Bali of the Center for the decline on the Press Council of India,
Mass Media listed five cornerstones of which investigates complaints against
ethics: the press but has no powers of enforce-
■ Being fair. ment.
■ Reflecting every viewpoint in every Rao said the council’s findings have
story. little or no bearing on press behavior:
■ Not offending any ethnic sensibili- “[The council] must be able to punish
ties. Journalism professor W.A. Qazi says it is individuals working in the press. If you’re not punished for vio-
■ Not reporting allegations without the press who give the media their freedom. lating a law, you go on violating it.”

Religious diversity is important issue for journalists

Continued from page 7
fires, or even whether the travel budget pro-
vides for adequate news coverage. “Students
ought to know where newspapers are coming
from,” she said.
Koppikar also said she wants students to
embrace ethics and be prepared for “a world
that has no ethics.” When private businesses
call news conferences to make announce-
ments, she said, local journalists often leave
them with a “packet” in hand containing
30,000 to 35,000 rupees (about $750 to $875).
Sophia Polytechnic also tries to sensitize
its students to coverage of diversity issues,
which are part of the fabric of India.
Koppikar said the Bombay media make no
concerted effort to cover the city’s slums,
which, according to Western guidebooks,
house more than 9 million people, about 55%
of the population. Another 4 million to 5 mil-
lion people, it is estimated, live on the streets.
As part of their course, the students are
required to report stories from the slums.
Religious diversity also is a big issue in
India, with its majority Hindus and minority
Muslims, Christians and others. Sameera
Khan of The Times of India, a teacher at
Sophia Polytechnic and a Muslim, recalled a
time in her newsroom when a Muslim holiday
was approaching and no other member of the
news staff of 60-70 people realized it.
Koppikar lamented what she said was
inaccurate coverage of tribal people in rural
India being “reconverted to Hinduism” from
Christianity after complaints and violence by
Hindu extremists.
She said the tribal people were not Hindu
to begin with so they could not be reconvert-
ed to Hinduism, as both the national and
international media have been reporting. She
said she has pointed out the error to local edi- Editor and teacher Sameera Khan says there is too
tors, but the inaccuracy persists. little awareness of religious diversity among Indians.

8 MEDIA AT THE MILLENNIUM: INDIA

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