Rich parliamentarian’s poor show

Lagadapati Rajagopal, the rich parliamentarian representing the Vijayawada constituency grabbed the attention of the national and international media yet again with his contemptible show in the Parliament.

Thursday i.e. on Feb 13, 2014, the entire media focused the only issue of what Lagadapati Rajagopal has done in the Loksabha. At times, people wonder why such heinous acts are performed by the politicians. The entire national media who focused the issue kept on criticizing Lagadapati. Conversely, few media channels praised him as contemporary Bhagat Singh.

‘Where we are leading?’ is the question that continuously bothers me. It’s not sensible to compare Lagadapati with legendry Bhagat Singh. The principle institution of our parliamentary system has been attacked by the own member and the entire nation should condemn such a heinous act. However, even such dreadful act has been praised by few media channels. This is the height of biased journalism.

“Where the mind is without fear….let my country awake” is the famous poem from Rabindranath Tagore’s Geetanjali. Had Rabindranath Tagore was alive on this day, he should have re-written his poem that best suits the contemporary Indian society.

While our publishing platforms and story forms evolved, the media hung onto three core principles — truth, independence and minimizing harm — to guide the ethical decisions the media practitioners made in journalism. For the longest time, it seemed our ethical values would remain exactly the same. But, the more things changed, the more we found that this specific articulation of values was an unhelpful starting point when confronting new challenges. Truth remains our most important goal. Transparency andcommunity rise in importance. They don’t replace independence and minimizing harm, as much as include them.

Give due respect to the noble profession – journalism!!