Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Mullapally Ramachandran said media should not try the accused and pass verdict on them. He was inaugurating a dialogue on “Media and Human Rights: Trends and Challenges” organised by the Dialogue Centre at Constitution Club in New Delhi on March 13.
Mr. Ramachandran said media-trials are on the rise in the country and this dangerous tendency must end since it often leads to violation of human rights. The task of passing verdicts should be left to the courts of law. Media should give equal room for the voices of both the accuser and the accused. They should try to go beyond the obvious and find out what leads certain sections of society to extremism and bloodshed. In fact, a good media person must essentially be a good human being, he elaborated.
Business interests often prompt corporate media to turn a blind eye on ethics, opined Frontline Deputy Editor Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, who was the moderator of the dialogue. “Media have been used for commercial purposes and to suit the interests of the proprietors. This tendency needs to be checked. It’s when managements use media for their own vested interests that malpractices like ‘paid news’ take place,” said Ramakrishnan.
Prof. M.D. Nalapat, who has held top editorial positions at the Times of India and Mathrubhumi, said that almost hundred per cent of mediapersons rely solely on the official sources for news. “Nobody wants to hear non-official sources. So, it is easy for the police to get the public to believe their cooked-up versions,” he said. Nalapat also stressed the need for scrapping the age-old draconian laws made by the British, if we honestly want to check human rights violations.
Commenting the way the media handled the ‘Love Jihad’ canard, Prof. AK Ramakrishnan of the Jawaharlal Nehru University said the media were actually volunteering for Pramod Muthalik’s Sri Rama Sena. This, he continued, led to a situation where a Muslim student gets beaten up if he is found talking to a Hindu girl.
Prof. K.A. Siddique Hassan, Deputy Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, said the media have snowballed to become the ‘first estate’ that influences all other estates namely the legislature, judiciary and the executive. The media, who reproduced the police version word for word in the Ishrat Jahan case, had to eat their own words when a judicial enquiry commission proved that the incident was a fake encounter. Prof. Hassan accused the media of ignoring the ‘other voices’ with respect to the Batla House encounter case and the terror charges slapped on Sufiya Ma’adani.
Prof. T.K. Oommen of the Jawaharlal Nehru University was of the opinion that caste system is largely responsible for the human rights violations in India and everyone including the media must be ready for introspection.
Concluding the dialogue, Dr. Yaseen Ashraf, Associate Editor of Malayalam daily Madhyamam, said the total number of media conglomerates in the world has alarmingly plunged from fifteen to five and this has resulted in the homogenisation of the media content all over the world, marginalising the diverse voices.
Programme convener M.C.A. Naser delivered the welcome speech and P.K. Noufal, president of Delhi Malayali Halqa proposed vote of thanks.