Media must play educator while handling sensitive issues:Naidu
10 September, Bhubaneswar
Union minister of Information and broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu today said the challenges before the media are to ensure quality, credibility along with the responsibility to play the role of an educator while handling sensitive issues.
In the context of various sensitivities prevalent in a multi cultural society like India, it is imperative to strike a fine balance between freedom of speech and expression and reasonable restriction so as to maintain public order and integrity and sovereignty of India,” he said.
Inaugurating a conclave of a local television channel here, Mr Naidu said news reporting should not be partitioned and utmost care must be taken to ensure that the national security is not harmed in any way.
The Union Minister said obscenity and vulgarity should not be there in the media reporting as sensationalism and yellow journalism could erode the confidence of the news consumers.
The responsibility of the media sector, he said, is not just providing news but providing factually correct news and utmost importance should be made to see that he news provided is not biased and partitioned.
Mr Naidu said the phenomenon of paid news in a democracy like India has harmed the process of transformation of the nation in which the developmental issues and related debates take a back seat in such situation.
The Union Minister said now a days the social media was playing an extremely important role and was competing with the traditional media in reaching out to the masses.The dissemination process in the social media space, he said, also impacts the information flow and contributes to the public debate and setting the agendas in the police framework.
Mr Naidu said the live news feed and minute by minute news update has brought in new challenges for the media sector, adding that this should not become the platform to provide false news and factually incorrect information.
He said with the advent of 4G there will be real convergence and ”we will move towards video streaming mode form telecast mode and in the long run, the viewing habits may shift to mobile platforms substantially.
The Union Minister said media has not only furthered and strengthened the democratic ideals of equality and justice but has positioned itself as a vigilant watch dog of democracy by exposing unfair practices.
It has done a commendable job in areas like eradicating corruption, safety and security of vulnerable sections like children and women and the Swachh Bharat Abhijan but still has bigger role to play in promoting the communal harmony in the country which was multi religious and have diverse cultures and languages.