Media or Market?

Here are more perspectives about “When Business meets Media.” It actually means wearing two hats as a Supreme Court bench consisting of chief justice K G Balakrishnan and justice Ravindran observed recently. When Harish Salve, counsel for Margadarsi Financiers, attributed mala fide to chief minister Rajasekhara Reddy, chief justice Balakrishnan commented, "Financial institutions are always in trouble. Why can’t the government intervene?” At another point, justice Ravindran, who was part of the two-man bench, said, "When the chief minister commits a mistake you pointed it out. Similarly, when you did wrong, the State government has acted. Your client (Mr Ramoji Rao) is wearing two hats. One is as a newspaper owner and the other as a proprietor of a chit fund company. When, according to law, only an incorporated company can collect deposits, Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) cannot carry out such business. If the RBI has issued some instructions that means everything is not right.”

The Press Commissions foresaw this tussle long ago. The second Press Commission has strongly recommended the delinking of the press from its connections with other industries. In the context of industrialists venturing into printing of newspapers with a profit motive, some members of the commission pointed out the need to have journalists and their newspapers independent of any influence from the barons of industry. With this in mind, it was suggested that either owners of newspapers who were involved with other businesses and industries delink themselves from the latter, or else sever their connections with the press.

It is in the best interests of the readers to free the press “from steamrollering of the commercial process so that it may mean maximum amount of freedom of expression for the maximum number of people. It is because of the close hold press barons have on a majority of daily newspapers that the content of the newspapers they own subserves their monetary interests, said Jan R. Hakemulder in his book Print Media Communication.

The clash of media-business interests is not a new phenomenon in Indian journalism. The pioneers are not Ramoji Rao or Girish Sanghi. They had illustrious forbears like the Dalmias, the Birlas and Ramnath Goenka. While the first two negotiated successive governments with élan and finesse Ramnath Goenka tried to be both a media hero and a businessman. That did not work. Goenka had several newspapers and also jute and steel interests. He had top Congress leaders and ministers (Kamaraj Nadar and T T Krishnamachari) taking care of his interests. But when Indira Gandhi nationalized the Indian Iron and Steel Company in which he had a large chunk of shares and which he was planning to take over, he turned against the mainstream Congress known as Congress (I) in those days. The government also took over his National Jute Company. The Antulay witch hunt in the Arun Shourie era also had a similar background. Who does not know Ramnath Goenka’s thirst for real estate?

One of India’s biggest real estate barons, the Raheja group, which owns the Outlook weekly edited by Vinod Mehta, also had problems with the government. Mehta raised the bogey of freedom of press when tax officials raided the offices of the Raheja group. Why should the Editors’ Guild which is purely a professional body come to the rescue of Ramoji Rao whose business and not media interests are hurt by Andhra Pradesh government’s actions? It is not only owners but individual journalists too who are torn between duty and avarice. It is well known that senior journalists seek favours for their owners and smooth out problems with the government.

But a much wider perspective is the convergence of media and market. Take a look at the media space that Ramoji Rao is in control of. His Telugu daily Eenadu is published from 23 centres, three of them extraterritorial – Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi. He publishes Vipula and Chatura, two literary magazines, Annadaata, a magazine for farmers and Sitara, a film weekly. His ETV has an all-India reach with 12 regional channels. ETV also provides digital entertainment to Indians living in the US with ETV Telugu, ETV Bangla and ETV Gujarati entertainment channels. His Ushodaya Movies has produced several box-office hits. The world’s largest film studio Ramoji Film City is owned by him. This is his media clout reinforced by other interests like Priya Foods, Kalanjali and Margadarsi Financiers which now is under AP government’s scrutiny. Ramoji Rao is a combination of media and market power.

We will understand Reddy-Ramoji Rao tussle more readily if we see media as agents of power. This is how Herbert Altschull saw the media in the early eighties when he wrote a book by that name. The Altschull thesis and Noam Chomsky’s theory of manufacturing consent do not hold any more. Today, media imposes a consent. Everywhere, Murdoch-type media empires are emerging taking advantage of liberal financial climate globalization has fostered. Today, there is really no meeting point between the interests of the media and the interests of their constituencies. They disseminate not what the publics need but what the publics want.

The giant waves of globalization released by constantly coalescing market forces make all the difference to media and their original function. Most media, print, radio and TV, (with honorable exceptions) disseminate values that override the concerns of a majority of the population. The content we read, hear and view has little relevance to the alleviation of centuries-old illiteracy and poverty of the millions. The hysteria about Oscars in Indian media is a representative specimen of media priorities that anesthetizes not only the leisured classes to problems concerning the poor but the poorer classes themselves to what is their problem. You will see that with the exception of few old-type newspapers almost all the media are selling globalization directly and indirectly.

On the other hand, specially in today’s scenario where media unabashedly declares that their content is geared to what people want but not what they need, where the dialogue is top-down and one-sided, where the audience is condemned to consume content not of their choice but that which is determined by the interests of the media owner, media can be said to have abandoned their public service function. Whereas a Chandrababu Naidu or a Rajasekhara Reddy cannot continue to be in office by merely attacking each other, a newspaper attracts audience by attacking the government deluding the people into believing that they are playing the role of a watchdog or adversary. Vijay Mallya is more honest. Asked why he is buying up newspapers, he said, "The reason I am buying into the media is that in India, it is an essential part of management of our business - it’s my insurance policy."