The other day two young people were discussing some point and in the heat of argument one of them said: “Well the bikau media (sold media) will not show this.” And a slew of epithet against media and journalists flew from the young man’s mouth. Incidentally, both the young men hold completely opposite political views.

This prompted me to think: “Is anything like independent media possible in the present scenario?”

During the past 30 years or so media has become a product which is made available to the audience free or on a nominal cost. It is very expensive to set up a media establishment, and it is still more expensive to run it. Most of the news channels on television are free to air. All the newspapers are priced so low that the price you and I pay is barely able to meet expenses incurred on reaching it to us.

Then how do these media houses survive. It’s the advertisements that keep them going. In any given newspaper establishment, obviously advertisement department, sorry marketing department, is the master who dictates terms to ‘once-upon-a-time-powerful’ editor and decides what will and what will not go into the newspaper. The same should be true of news channels also.  

This vulnerability of the institution of the editor has been exploited by the politicians. In Uttar Pradesh, when Mulayam Singh Yadav became Chief Minister in 1989 he started the practice of stopping government advertisements to newspapers critical of him. The practice started by MSY has been religiously followed by Kalyan Singh, Mayawati, Rajnath Singh, Akhilesh Yadav and Yogi Adityanath. And probably the same is being done by all the governments.

Industrialists too are not behind the politicians. They not only protect their interests, but also of their political friends. So Hindustan and Hindustan Times cannot print anything on what Hindalco and Kanodia Chemicals are doing in Sonbhadra district to pollute air and water.

And as the availability of advertisement shrinks with the emergence of new players like Google and Facebook, mad rush for advertisements will only increase, given the fact that we are actually being charged much less than or nothing for what we are reading and viewing.

In good old days, that is, up to 1990s, when there were no 24×7 news channels and no internet, newspapers were primary source of news. Then the newspapers used to cost almost the same as they cost today. The price that we used to pay covered major expenses of the publication. With prices stagnant and newspaper becoming bulkier, today newspapers and news channels exclusively depend on advertisements for their survival.

As the media is trapped into “less than free cover price”, it becomes “bikau” for many. Amen!

Featured Photo: Newspaper collage from internet