Media Newsletter

Tulsi Dutta (Tulsi Dutta teaches journalism in Calcutta University. He is also a visiting faculty in some other institutions in Kolkatta. Unlike many teachers in mass media institutions, Tulsi Dutta is with rich practical experience of media . He has worked on the desk in different positions in Indian Express and Bartmaan before turning to academics in 1995.)

The study of Mass Communication is rapidly catching on with the young men and women. The lure of public glare and glamour apart, this discipline of education really holds out hordes of hopes to the hopefuls in India where media business is thriving like no other business. The sole exception, of course, being the Information Technology (IT) sector. But one basic difference separates the two money-spinners. While the IT sector shares its boom with its employees, the media business simply gobbles up everything depriving journalists and other employees.

As Mr Chalapathi Rao, one of the very few editors in the truest sense of the term, had once said: As the Press has grown, there are now a newspaper industry and the profession of journalism. They are separate but intimately connected, for without the industry the profession cannot exist. In this respect, the profession of journalism is not like legal or medical profession. The organized part of journalismis not self-employed, it is largely employed.

The question is, where is the scope of employment for the young men and women armed with degree and diploma in journalism and mass communication ? How many media houses regularly advertise to recruit journalists ? Some newspapers stoutly refuse to take the students as interns.

Because of the intrinsic nature of the media business ( especially newspapers), its owners can easily bend the rules of the land through a few "critical" editorials for their vested interest like getting government land in prime localities at throwaway price or getting the fines imposed by the municipal corporation for illegal construction totally waives through the "good offices" of some obliging officers.
An editor-owner of a Bengali newspaper in Calcutta went to the extent of "hiring" the top boss of the state forest department to prepare a garden in his palatial office. This species of editor-owners convert the reporters into "operators". They are kept in the "stable" and paid handsomely not for any journalistic excellence (for they hardly need to work), but for their expertise to solve their masters' problem.

These so-called editors are encouraged by the simple fact that those who are recruited as reporters are meticulously chosen from among hundreds of "wannabe journos" on the basis of "docility factor". One editor-owner tells his recruiter to find out the vulnerable candidates' especially who hail from rural areas but want to make big in the metropolitan city. These candidates are chosen because the editor knows that they can be easily bullied or simply coerced to perform the kind of duties that normally a city-bred candidate would not do. These new recruits are offered the job. Salary ? Well, Rs. 3000 !
Less than the daily cost of the "aromatic massage" the newspaper owner-editor may probably take.

How things happen? A newspaper is fined for violating municipal laws. The amount is quite substantial. Now the editor will, through his operators "sound" the reporter of the corporation beat to do the needful. I know one such hapless reporter who hailed from a distant district town. He tried for a couple of weeks to dodge the editor's directive to get the matter settled in favour of the editor. But he had to give in at the end. By that time that reporter had already booked a flat in the new township. The editor played his trump card. He threatened the reporter to transfer him to a district. The fine was waived and the reporter who came from a district settle down in Calcutta fulfilled his dream.

The first report of the Press Council which was constituted under an Act of Parliament in 1965 is there to see how unabashedly big industry houses started newspapers to share the spoils of the World War II. That the same tradition is continuing is for all to see. Today's newspapers "beosaiis" (owners) are much more cunning than their counterparts three decades ago. These "beosaiis" pretty well know how to create hype around a person to make sure that he or she does whatever he or she is told to do. The modus oparandi is very simple. He deputes a reporter (read operator) and assigns him a specific job. The reporter will glued to the target. Like the cell phone ad, the reporter will go wherever the target goes. Travelling with him or her through the length and breadth of the state, the country and beyond. That reporter may also have to "gift" the target high-end cell phone or very expensive sari as the case may be on behalf of his master. This is what the freedom of the press is all about. This is how corruption spreads. The thumb rule being "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours".