Well, everything has its yin and yang side;
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
I wonder if the above holds true for the coverage of the ongoing Reservation-Quota story in the electronic media and print media. We see only one side of the story. They cover 80% of anti-reservation and only 20% of pro-reservation.
If it’s “The Rage over Quotas”, “Ghost of Mandal Returns”, “The Fire Spreads”, “Losing Patience”, “Deserve vs. Reserve”, “Doctors Defiant”, “Death of Merit” caption for their Quota-Reservation issue coverage; it’s almost the same in the case of the Print media. It’s “OBCBM- OBC Ballistic Missile” , “Mandal - II” , “100% reserved for family (indicating the PM post)”,etc. These days, I don’t watch much of Television (/me blames CAS) but I’ll tell how biased the newspapers are.
We subscribe to two Newspapers, The Hindu and Deccan Chronicle. There is a ocean of difference when it comes to quota coverage and related articles. While The Hindu presents a neutral stand, Deccan Chronicle on the other hand is entirely Anti-reservation.
Immature Coverage
To be honest, We buy Deccan Chronicle as an additional read to The Hindu and it costs only a rupee rs. 1.50. I read it for the rumours, I get to see a lot of chicks, read film news and many more “masti and masala” reads. Even so, I get irritated while I read the newspaper. It’s full of anti-reservation.
If the News channels can recycle some visuals endlessly, Deccan Chronicle does it in a different way. The have a cartoon section (”Here and Now - Sudhir Tailang”) which have anti-reservation cartoons for almost 5-6 times a week. It almost seems that they are desperate to reach out that they are also anti-reservation.
Another article which amused me was the :”GenY join hands against quota issue” in their ‘Teens’ section of Chennai Chronicle (May 22, page 25). While there might be no error or anything wrong with it but the whole thing showed Deccan Chronicle in a poor light. Don’t we all know that students are protesting? Do we need to be reminded that they are “GenY” or do we need a photo of pretty girls protesting? Don’t they know that there are also a pro-reservation protests and rallies in the opposite camp and are they not “GenY”?
An ocean of difference - The Hindu and Deccan Chronicle
Let’s see how The Hindu is covering the whole issue. Their Editorial (as far as my knowledge goes they printed only twice; one at the time of the proposal and the other one was how to strike a balance between merit and social inequality) was good and was presently neatly without takes sides. The Hindu also published a two part series on an Alternate proposal to strike a balance between merit and social inequality and a survey created by Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) jointly written by Professor Yogendra Yadav.
Right from the Editorials, Cartoons, guest columns, pictures, letters to the editors and even the reader columns (Open page - Sunday Edition; The Hindu) there was a vast difference in the way that both the newspapers covered the whole issue. One was biased to the core (Deccan Chronicle) and the other showed both sides of the story (The Hindu).
While one newspaper (The Hindu) goes beyond the raging debate and ponders into the alternate proposal and goes beyond the rhetoric of reservations, the other one (Deccan Chronicle) still covers the protests, rallies & childish cartoons and that too is biased. It’s any body’s guess which paper most of the people would like to read.
“We are with you and support your cause”
As I have said earlier, Deccan Chronicle got news which is basically targeted towards younger section of the readers. The got chicks and pretty girls on their end pages, rumours, film news, got to look good, “glamour and class” rules their contents. So it’s not surprising that there coverage is also biased and one sided.
When a Newspaper has a class constituency (or a section of readers they target), the labels tell the constituency that the Newspaper is with it on this issue.
The job of the media is to cover and show the events in an unbiased manner. They need to strike a balance between the two sides of the coin. Maybe only in the Editorials, Columns they can be bias which is again purely the author’s personal opinion. Their job is to only dish out the stuff, it’s upto to the readers to taste it and see if they like it.
More Reads: Taking Sides (About the same issue but with the electronic media)
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15 comments ↓
Newton’s Laws… I actually read a joke, What would happen if Newton watched all Rajnikanth movies? Reading the title, that was what I was reminded about.
Anyways, we all know why you buy Deccan Chronicle.
And as for Hindu and DC, that’s why the Hindu has survived for 125years. It’s that proffesional.
Hi there .
Whatever newspaper u read, 1 thing is now quite clear. There are certain issues popping up at the centre-stage which are solely happening to get a political edge over the other.Here none of the political parties would come forward to the cause of non-OBCs, hence the media has the responsibility.If DC is carrying out the same responsibility, I shall really appreciate it.
Regards
^^
It’s ones personal opinion whether he/she is anti/pro reservation, but as a Newspaper, they need to be neutral which DC fails.
By the way, I just happened to notice that DC has raised the price by 50% and it’s Rs. 1.5 per copy.
DC purely sucks man… Its cheap literally… Atleast NIExpress is better though it sheds ink. I am a TH fan all the way
Hmm… I find DC better than NIE. Atleast I get to see chicks if you good quality stuffs.
I don’t see it as the rights of newspapers to be extremely neutral. A newspaper is like a blog. I can express my feelings in my blog and so can the editor or writer in an article but he/she should mention that it is mere opinion. But There should be no distortion of facts.
And whoever said The Hindu is 100% neutral. I follow the politics articles regularly. They are 100% pro Congress and DMK and there is some relation between Maran and NRam, if I’m not mistaken.
The NIE is very decent if you ask me.
1.5 rise was inevitable though and ob.
NIE infact reduced the price from 3 to 1.5. It was DC who hike by 50%.
In the real world, you are right, Chrono—newspapers will never be totally neutral because humans cannot be. However, I believe there is an expectation that they are neutral, especially for those who are not well informed of an issue. So many attempt to dictate a viewpoint through an editorial and expect readers to adopt the same—and many less informed ones are quite willing to, to save on doing their own analysis.
Jack Yan,
Where do you live?
You fail to understand one point. Unlike Blogs, newpapers are not run by a single person ie, only 1 person does not write all the articles , news and other things. When we have more than one person doing the job, we can be neutral on the whole.
The Hindu Editorials are very good. I look for them to read every single day.
As for DC, they can’t even do news reporting neutrally, how the hell can their Editorials be good?
I agree with Ashwin, in that, newspapers and media are supposed to give us un-biased information. I say that, because are they our information sources? We need to get untainted news to make our decisions about different policies. And blogs and newspaper are vastly different, because newspapers are more credible. Well, for now anyway. I am more likely to believe a newspaper than a blog on issues because some papers like Hindu, or NY Times are highly reputed and stand to lose a lot if caught playing dirty..
Ashwin, I live in New Zealand. And I have not failed to understand any point. If you look at, say, The New York Times, there is a greater liberal bias; the pattern is repeated in most nations. In the UK, The Daily Telegraph will tend toward the conservative, while The Guardian will tend toward the socialist. You are talking of ideals, and on that I agree—professional human beings working together can create a newspaper that is neutral. But the reality is not always the case, as your own thoughts on the Deccan Chronicle illustrate.
Joy, I would not say that the New York Times is neutral, having had some experience with the newspaper. Indeed, I would class many newspapers as being not credible: given the choice between the mainstream media and a blogger who witnessed an incident, I would seek out the latter.
Well, the editorials might be biased liberal in NYT. However, they report news without opinion. They have reported the good Bush has done along with the bad. I view the news articles seperate from the editorials at the end of the paper.
And seeking a blogger for first hand information is fine. I was talking about investigative journalism. when newspapers publish articles, they do so with their credibility on the line.. the blogger has a lot less to lose than a newspaper for wrong information
Good point, Joy, about investigative journalism—I would concur with you there, certainly. My experience with the NYT does suggest some liberal bias in its news, however, having been interviewed for the paper and noting what made it into print.
Fair enough.
But a Newspaper can be unbiased and neutral if they want. The problem with DC is that they a class constituency (or a section of readers they target), the labels tell the constituency that the Newspaper is with it on this issue.
And again I wish to defer from your point. I would rather prefer reports of mainstream media. Atleast I’ll get to know the whole picture unlike a blogger who might conveniently leave out some of the facts to his likings. Blogger reports are opinions (most of the times), not news reports.
Hey Jack, why were you interviewed? Can you expect each and everything that do to go to the print? They’re bound to leave out some stuffs due to various reasons.
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