Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Indian media biased?

There is some sort of "media bias" e-mail being circulated on the net. It is declared, without any citation or references, that mostly all of the media groups and agencies in India (NDTV, Times of India group, Indian Express group, CNN-NBC etc.) are owned by non-Hindu organizations. And that is given as a reason for why these media groups have (allegedly) become "hindu bashers". Here're some excerpts:

NDTV: A very popular TV news media is funded by Gospels of Charity in Spain Supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because Pakistan President has allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan. Indian CEO Prannoy Roy is co-brother of Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the Communist party of India. His wife and sisters.


India Today which used to be the only national weekly who supported BJP is now bought by NDTV!! Since then the tone has changed drastically and turned into Hindu bashing.


I think this is utter B.S. (Yes, it is true that NDTV is the only Indian channel that is currently being broadcasted in Pakistan. But I don't see why that would suddenly make them anti-hindu. By the way, I don't think "co-brother" even means anything.)


I spent some time online and googled these alleged connections but didn't find any authentic information. The only sites where this "media ownership alignment politics" is mentioned are on-line discussion forums, blogs and some religious fundamentalists' web-portals. Barring the last one, most questioned the validity of these fragile allegations. Here's some more:


Gujrat riots which took place in 2002 where Hindus were burnt alive, Rajdeep Sardesai and Bharkha Dutt working for NDTV at that time got around 5 Million Dollars from Saudi Arabia to cover only Muslim victims which they did very faithfully. Not a single Hindu family was interviewed or shown on TV whose near and dear ones had been burnt alive, it is reported.


Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka.com regularly gets flat check from Arab countries to target BJP and Hindus only, it is said.


(Emphases mine)


Does someone really have to be a genius to see right through these?


I have made a rule of thumb long time ago: Do not trust ANY forwarded e-mail at once. Most of them are nonsensical twaddles. A little research can easily reveal the truth.

The last line of this forwarded e-mail reads "PONDER OVER THIS. NOW YOU KNOW WHY EVERY ONE IS AGAINST TRUTH, HOW VERY SAD."

Really, how very sad!

2 comments:

Renjith Nair said...

I would like to comment that, most of the Indian Media is politically biased and immature, especially when it comes to BJP rules states they are surprisingly misleading the readers and viewers in this country. Infact, in my true knowledge BJP ruled states are doing well in many aspects if not all compare to other states.We know that there is not a single news paper or visual media which is not run by a family in this country.If you consider CNN-IBN it is the most visibly biased visual media channel ever India have seen, so obsessed with Gandhi dynasty,Rajdeep and his Wife Sagarika is totally after Narendra Modi and BJP. If Modi sneezes it is a headline story in CNN-IBN!.if you consider NDTV PRANNOY ROY is trying his best to be a pseudo-secularist. But if we closely watch each of their programs it is increasingly getting biased and a person with common sense can understand what is going on behind the scene.Prannoy Roy and Barkha Dutta believes they are the only intellectuals left in this country!.If you look at the news papers, we know the history of Indian express. What role Goenka played in Indian politics utilizing his family run news paper business.Vir Sanghvi of Hindustantimes ( Late KK Birla is a staunch congressman) is all the way praising Sonia as if his career itself is pledged for that cause. A fair exemption can be made for Times of India ,I don’t know If I am correct.Otherwise there is a serious conspiracy going on this country by these new founded intellectual Pseudo Secularists.We must be able to differentiate what is right and what is wrong as these channels are targeting young urban population mixing news with bit of masalas and Tabloid especially the Hip-hop culture. They are not aware that their credibility and neutrality is being lost infront of the masses.In India Media ethics is a neglected truth.It is the era of family run businesses for personal and political gains.In the name of freedom of speech they are misleading the people to make thier own profit and gains.Who care where this will lead the country to?????

Anonymous said...

yes i totally agree with you . certain Indian media is biased , which is clearly visible with there programs.