Media bias is the discrimination a media person shows with respect to being in favor of some
political interests of a particular party of the system. People misusing their Freedom to Speech
and influencing people by the means of social media has become a usual scene in today’s time.
Media is supposed to work as the fourth pillar for the society but instead is being misused by
the political leaders to promote their propaganda by the means of journalists. They have
become mouthpieces of their political masters.
A big role in deflecting us towards a particular ideology is played by the media persons around
us. Earlier their only job was to deliver the happenings around the world to the general public
being a facilitator to them but now the tables have turned and they’ve gained enough power to
be able to influence people and carry them to where their opinions feel the most comfort.
None of the journalists out there has been spared from this, be it Arnab Goswami who has been recently arrested for encouraging a mother-son duo to commit suicide. However, he is always a face of the news because of his way of talking and how intimidating he can be while conversing with the guests on his show. It becomes impossible for a human in his right senses to be able to hold Arnab to the standards of objective journalism. The network he works for has been accused of spreading fake news and promoting the propaganda led by the now ruling Modi government. During sadhus mob lynching comes by, Arnab gathers his baseless arguments and points them towards the opposition party and calls them out without any solid proofs, as happened in Palghar. He questioned directly to Udhav Thackrey and accused the government of beating up the sadhus that led to their killing just because of their appearance (wearing saffron clothes) while the police kept watching.
He kept emphasizing the word Hindus and how they were brutalized by the ruling government in Maharashtra.It’s evident that he comments in favor of the BJP government and that’s biased because his network Republic TV is funded by Asianet News which is led by Rajeev Chandrashekhar, an NDA Rajya Sabha MP.
There are more such journalists namely, Ravish Kumar who works for NDTV who is accused of
being of left mentality, which is questioning every move of the ruling government. He is often
found criticizing the supporters of the right-wing and tries to portray himself as unbiased
although still talking in favor of the leftist party. He doesn’t seem to handle criticism well and
people consider him pretending to be making good arguments but in reality he just plays with
your mind. To understand the influence of the journalist, pay attention to the beginning of the
show on his news channel.
It’s the best way to understand which political party you are going to
be influenced towards. To know how Ravish Kumar manipulates you, watch “Prime Time with
Ravish Kumar” of May 08, 2020. Here, on the unfortunate death of 16 migrant workers by a
cargo train in Aurangabad, Maharashtra; Ravish Kumar accused the central government of this
sorrowful incident instead of questioning the Maharashtra government.
Ravish has been seen supporting and promoting the JNU mentality that differs from that of the
ruling party. He clearly asked the audience to beware of the “masked” goons who created
chaos inside the JNU campus. He claimed that the incident happened at JNU was propaganda
spread by Modi led government. He referred to it as “Godi Media” and accused the party of saying the police were under their influence that barged in Jamia Milia University’s library and
attacked the students.
The audience is not only being turned towards a specific political party through television but
also social media platforms are another tool that is being misused by journalists like Faye
D’Souza, a former anchor at Mirror Now who had been omitted from the list of Goa
government’s lecture series after her stand on CAA. She went against the government’s
decision and thus lost her opportunity at the D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas organized by the
Goa Art and Culture Department. She is the journalist whose posts are being shared on
Instagram and whose videos are being streamed online by the youth of today. She has
managed to create a “fan base” among the millennials but at the cost of true journalism.
She left Mirror Now saying “mainstream journalism wasn’t holding the government accountable
for its actions anymore” at the Kommune Spoken Fest. She has started a series on Instagram
“News That Should Be Headlines” where she talks about the news that is not covered by the
mainstream media. Although the reports she presents are fake like her cheat sheet on NRC
and CAA. She influences her “woke” audience as she calls it, by telling them that this bill
affects the Indian citizens, which is not true. Faye’s accusations and arguments are baseless
and do not contain any credibility. She is biased against the ruling government and is clearly
trying to pursue the youth of this nation in her favor.
I’d just like to conclude by saying that every journalist would be in support of one or the other
party but that shouldn’t come in the way of facts and fairness.
-Noopur Jambhekar
(The views and opinions expressed in the attached post solely belong to the author and is not plagiarized to the best of our knowledge.)