Hyderabad, August.28: Sensationalism and unhealthy competition to score over others appear to have become the order of the day among most of the vernacular dailies now-a-days, apart from mud-slinging at the proprietors of the rival newspapers.
That majority of these newspapers have become political mouth pieces of one party or the other is a known fact, in their anxiety to ‘spin’ stories and score over the others, the journalists of some of the newspapers are imagining things and passing the fiction as news. It has become common for a section of the media to produce stories to malign the government, the ruling party or the main Opposition party, toeing the line of their respective Managements.
No sooner a report appears in one or the other newspaper, the politicians react by issuing statements either condemning the so-called actions and decisions of the government or political party leaders, or criticising the newspaper for false reporting and misleading the people. Naturally, the readers are in confusion over the contradictory reports in the dailies on the same issue. It is known that even the speeches of the ministers and political leaders are given a “twist” to suit the newspaper’s policy line. The government issuing clarifications to many stories circulated by a section of the Telugu media has almost become the order of the day.
There is a view among a section of the journalists, as also the readers, that one newspaper producing a “fictitious story” is resulting in wastage of a lot of space in other newspapers, as the political leaders and other organisations immediately came out with statements either supporting or condemning the subject matter or the person involved in the story. This is what has happened with regard to a news report in a Telugu daily yesterday, involving the Governor, Mr E S L Narasimhan. The daily reported prominently that the Governor had submitted a report to the Prime Minister in New Delhi stating that majority of the people were in favour of making Hyderabad as a Union Territory. The Governor has termed the report as “rubbish” and made it clear that there was absolutely no truth in it. He said that while his meeting with the Prime Minister was a fact, he had not presented any report to the latter at all.
The baseless report has resulted in waste of space in other Telugu newspapers, as the Telangana JAC convenor, Prof. Kodandaram, the TDP leaders, Dr Nagam Janardhana Reddy and Mr Kadiam Sreehari, the TDP president, Mr N Chandrababu Naidu, and several other organisations and political leaders have come out with lengthy statements on the issue. The categorical clarification issued by the Governor at New Delhi made it clear that the comments made by these leaders, without verifying the authenticity of the report, were uncalled for and unwarranted.
There is also a view that sensationalism should not create unnecessary ill-feelings among sections of people, particularly when an issue has become highly volatile, and when the people of the entire State are worked up on the burning issue of bifurcation of the State or continuation of unified State. On this highly controversial and emotional issue, the report of the Governor is considered very important and significant, and hence the people were naturally quite worried over the report which does not exist at all. Is it not better and appropriate for the media to observe some restraint and ethics on such an important issue? (NSS)