After a long time The Hindu drew admiration for doing an in-depth analysis of the cancer afflicting Indian democracy in the form of "paid news" to fool the people. Seasoned journalist P Sainath in his article in The Hindu on Nov. 30 brought forth the scam of Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan in using the media to further his political interests through paid news ( www.counterpunch.org/sainath11302009.html). Kudos to him. Late journalist Prabhash Joshi had also raised the issue of the paid news and had also filed a complaint with the Press Council of India, which, however, is a toothless body and is hardly heard by any.
The cancer of paid news is now a full blown cancer for India. This could not only be a forgery but could even be a fit case for section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. Punjab Keshri has been doing this for a long time and during election times its reporters make lakhs of rupees. Now, the whole herd of the Hindi newspapers has joined this collective shame. Before the Delhi Assembly elections last year, the kinds of Navbharat Times, Nai Duniya, Hindustan among some more had gone aggressively to sell their space for sponsored news items in favour of candidates in the fray. The modus operandi was simple that apart from buying the space the sponsoring candidates will buy newspapers in bulk, in thousands, and circulate in their constituencies to influence the voters in their favour.
This cancer is more deadly than any afflicting the nation. Corruption in media will not only undermine the very foundation of the country but will condemn the people to high dose of disinformation, which they might not distinguish from the information. Adding to this menace is the disinformation campaign is the propaganda war unleashed by the incumbent ruling party, which has government's resources at its disposal. Just recently the Haryana government had gone aggressively to publicize its "achievements" in the media before the election dates were notified. The Congress led Delhi government had also before Assembly polls had gone to the town with tall claims of one lakh homes for the poor (Not even a single home has been handed over to the poor despite one year passing by since elections), regularization of unauthorised colonies, which stoked the real-estate prices there but none has been done so far and many more.
The crisis is very deepened and challenges the Election Commission of India to wake up from its deep slumber, else the very foundation of the democracy will come tottering. The alarm bell is ringing.
