a debate speech on ' is the media playing a fair role in Indian democracy' in points
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Unfortunately, in India, the media is increasingly perceived to have morphed into an extension of the State, often resorting to sensationalism at the cost of visibility to issues crucial for the welfare of the people, with its bandsof cheerleaders and blanket critics.
It is also dangerous for a country to have such a seemingly high degree and intensity of State control over sections of the media. Not only does it contribute to the fostering of an allpowerful government that can escape media scrutiny, but it also makes it much easier to silence and punish any opposition to government by fabricating a case, sensationalising it through news media, and launching a State-sponsored media trial.
The gravity of the situation is made starker if we examine the role of the media during the Emergency in 1975-77, a period where freedom of speech was curtailed and, indeed, blacked out. Even in that atmosphere, the opposition parties and most other stakeholders (barring, perhaps, industry and a large section of the media that caved in to Indira Gandhi’s diktats) in Indian democracy were united in their opposition to the government of the day.
Contemporary social media in India — increasingly the platform of choice for untrammelled and unchecked discourse, and exchange and dissemination of information and ‘news’ —is chock-full of ‘fake news’, gross distortions of facts to serve political ends, and sensationalism. Mainstream media, in this context, runs the risk of becoming the proverbial ‘second paper’ for a gullible readership/viewership. News that can be trusted is under serious risk.
Compare this scenario to the US media. Most mainstream platforms are so vehemently against the current establishment that President Donald Trump routinely accuses them of being agents and culprits of ‘fake news’ and character assassinations, thereby levelling the ground between social and mainstream media.