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TV channel room is not a court, news anchor not a judge

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The recent debates over several national television channels (not Doordarshan) the prime time news shows of Hindi and English are filled with high voltage discussions rather we better call them shouts. Established anchors taking the roll of every public institution into their hands in the name of journalist freedom.

The recent debates over several national television channels (not Doordarshan) the prime time news shows of Hindi and English are filled with high voltage discussions rather we better call them shouts. Established anchors taking the roll of every public institution into their hands in the name of journalist freedom.

Many a times they become an intelligence agency, a court, a police station and an election commission. The roll of media as a fourthestate of democracy is highly important and being a sincere journalist he/she enjoys the right to get answers from responsible persons when an incident happens. The role of a responsible journalist ends with giving information to public. Its not the responsibility try and investigate a crime or a suspect.

Let that role be left to the respective public organization whether its judiciary, government or legislature. Now a days certain channels are becoming pro(over) active and causing damage to the role played by the other three pillars of democracy. Its neither fair nor good for the democracy to encroach upon the duties of other institutions in the name of shouldering responsibility for society.

A channel which runs 3 to 4 prime time news hours commencing from 8 pm to 11 pm invites several political party spokesmen to foreign ambassadors and guests to its news hour program and gets into Q&A sessions which at times lead to strained relations with guests. Often guests who are called for the show even leave the seats halfway through.

This is not the merit of the anchor but its only a shame to the national television in India. The Anchor must be able to get answer to his question as diplomatic as possible. The intention of the anchor should be to get the opinion of the person not the hate. The decibel levels of the anchor should not get aggressive pitch in proportion to seriousness matter in the subject. No hard shout becomes right question or gathers seriousness in subject.

A recent prime time show of channel which goes into discussion on mystery death of Sunanda Pushkar where eminent political party spokesmen , legal , forensic, medical, ex-police officers and human rights people are called in to the panel. The anchor wants to know who is the murderer? who is responsible for the death of Sunanda pushkar in that prime time show itself. He even challenges that he will not sleep until the criminal is sent to jail.

Being a responsible journalist and anchor of a media house its nothing wrong to have an aim to bring the facts behind the death to the public, if someone is trying to cover up. But going for investigation of the crime and conducting cross-examination of suspects as a judge in television channel show is not at all the job of a journalist.

The anchor in the above case wants to take the roll of both police and judiciary as his fundamental right which is highly deplorable. This becomes media excess and not good for healthy democracy. There is a popular saying in telugu “ the job of the dog (barking at suspicion) can not be taken up by a donkey”.

So I humbly appeal to all anchors and media houses to put a self- restraining mechanism and end this extra anxiety to get channel ratings improvement. Let us strive to take care before some other pillar of democracy fall on us to destroy the freedom of press.

By Raghu bhushan Eranki

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TV channel room is not a court, news anchor not a judge

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