NEW DELHIE: Noted Jurist Nani Palkhivala has said the Stateowned electronic media in the country has lost all credibility because of its “boneless, spinless and gutless” method of functioning.
However, Palkhivala praised the services rendered by the Press, with its accent on investigative journalism, because “it is free from the shackles of the Government.”
In a foreword to the first ever monograph on “mass media laws and regulations in India,” he said the importance of television could not be overemphasized in a country where illiteracy is deplorably high, much higher than what is officially admitted. K.S.Venkateswaran, who has compiled the publication on behalf of the Singapore based Asian Mass Communication Research and Information Center (AMIC), notes that the most striking aspect of the media in India today is the “overwhelming extent of State control in which they operate.”
At the outset, Palkhivala says “the two noblest servants of any well-regulated society are a courageous and independent press, and a@ courageous and independent judiciary.”
The Press was less than three centuries old, but “perhaps never in the world history has any other single institution exerted such fantastic influence on human affairs in So short a ime,” The indisputable fact was that the mass media the press, joined in this century by radio, television and films constitute the “great power of the 20th century. They are the movers of people, mobilizers of opinion,” Furthermore, a Press was not an optional extra and freedom is to mass media what oxygen is to human beings, Democracy without a free media is a contradiction in terms since “mass media should be the watchdog of democracy, and not the poodle of the establishment.” A muckraking journalist is vital to the wellbeing of society, “even though sometimes you may wish that he would stop raking the muck,” the jurist says.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 17, 1993
