Sahitya Akademi organized a panel discussion on Ethics and the Media at its premises in the State Library of Sector 34. Participating in the event were several lead figures from the media.
Prof Manju Jaidka, Chairperson of the Akademi, welcomed the guests and introduced the main speakers. Chairing the panel was Mr Kanwar Sandhu of Hindustan Times. The main speakers were Ashwini Bhatnagar, Head of the new Voice of India TV Channel in Uttar Pradesh, Nirupama Dutt who now writes for Sunday Indian, Mohanmeet Khosla, the Chairperson of Panjab University's School of Communication Studies, and Dinesh Kumar, erstwhile Resident Editor of TOI, Chandigarh.
Kanwar Sandhu initiated the discussion with an overview of the main issues involved in media ethics. He stressed upon the social responsibility of the media and on the importance of maintaining moral standards.
Ashwini Bhatnagar, who has earlier spent several years in Chandigarh working for the Tribune, was of the opinion that the media is a powerful medium which should remain aware of its rights as well as duties. Nirupama Dutt, who is also a well-known journalist in this region, has been writing and reporting for more than three decades.
Mohanmeet Khosla's was a power-point presentation that highlighted problem areas in journalism career. In particular she spoke passionately about the objectification of womanhood in advertisements and of the sexual disrespect shown towards women. Dinesh Kumar, after completing a sabbatical in Australia, has recently returned to Chandigarh to resume his journalistic career. He talked about the commercialization of news reporting and the fact that information now been combined with entertainment so that now we have ‘infotainment’. The four panelists interacted with the audience in a lively debate, putting forward divergent views on ethical standpoints in the media.
Among the various issues discussed were the hidden agendas behind newspaper reporting, the reasons why a certain kind of news makes headline while another kind may be totally ignored. The audience was also interested in the gaps and silences in media coverage -- why do some events grab the attention of the public? What is the nature of truth represented by the media? How much of influence does the media wield and how is this influence manipulated?
The discussion was followed by a lively interaction with the audience. Like other events of the CSA, this one, too turned out to be interesting, instructive and and intellectually rewarding.
The next CSA event will be a talk by Dr Ramesh Chandra Shah, eminent Hindi writer of Bhopal. It will be held on March 7th, at the same time, same place.
