The Delhi stranglehold

The deacutejagrave vu was strong While recording a discussion on Rajya Sabha TV there was the same old talk of commercialisation of media poor editors need for regulation and so on The topic mdash Why Indian media is not able to do investigative stories I looked around and wondered why the discussion was not moving forward That is when it hit me mdash it was because of Delhirsquos stranglehold In almost all TV discussions or the ones at events editors from Delhi bureaucrats former or current journalists are part of the panel There will be the odd editor from The Hindu in Chennai But otherwise just like the edit pages of newspapers were at one time completely dominated by Delhi writers the discussion on the current and future of journalism is completely dominated by people from Delhi Money matters Journalists and bureaucrats with no idea of the shape of the Indian media business debate its problems and future Can we take the mike away from themu00a0 Why that is so is not entirely clear Someone could argue that the head of almost every major news brand is in Delhi That is incorrect The head offices of major English newspapers and news channels are in Delhi Whatever the reasons the fact remains that most discussions on media have been warped in time at least over the 12 odd years that I have been covering the sector This is arguably because the people doing the talking come from the same space They carry the same biases and prejudices Take two of them Most of the editors and lsquomedia expertsrsquo based in Delhi have an allergy to the words lsquobusinessrsquo and lsquoprofitrsquo They think that any company that works for a profit is bad and any news company that does that is necessarily selling its soul to the devil The coming of investment mdash from institutions venture funds private equity or even corporate houses mdash into media has actually freed it hugely Note that the frequency with which it reports scams and brings the truth to light has increased This is irrespective of who has broken the scam Sure there have been excesses and oversights But largely more good has come from the rising noise from private media whether in the Priyadarshini Matto case or the Jessica Lal one So we need more private capital into media not less Secondly many of the Delhi editors and lsquoexpertsrsquo actually advocate more government intervention into media not less This comes from a lsquolicense rajrsquo mindset News media and journalism need better stronger editors loads of money and time on training and media owners with a backbone Some of the best investigative stories like Watergate in the US needed months of effort and resources Such stories also need strong media owners who back their editors in the face of pressure to pull the plug on the stories It is not clear how more regulation will support any of this Here is my guess about why this happens Delhi is the political capital of the country Editors have traditionally been based there with significant branches in Mumbai or Chennai But largely their concerns were national at times regional but rarely local As media spreads mdash there are 133 news channels and at least four competing newspapers in every major city and town in India mdash the competition is intense Unlike say in the seventies readers are exposed not just to one statesponsored TV channel and one odd newspaper but to thousands of options across the print TV internet radio mobile spectrum This is a competitive and robust market This kind of competition raises business and professional issues that are far beyond the call of an old fogey sitting in Delhi Most of the people on the committees and panels have no idea of the business of media They frequently mix up the numbers for entertainment business with news mix up print with TV and so on Without a thorough understanding of the business underpinning it is impossible to discuss anything because everything then is a matter of opinion I use the word business in a positive sense of someone running a profitable healthy credible news organisation Many companies around the world and in India still do it And that is what we need to foster not a lsquobusiness is bad profit is bad and anyone running a news channel as business is badrsquo attitude The writer is a media specialist and author Follow her on twitter at httptwittercomvanitakohliku00a0