Can media reports remain politically neutral at all times? Well, if the media has a bias towards a particular party then it will surely face tough time when the rival party is in power. But for the ones which remain neutral it doesn’t matter who rules, going will always be tough, as their unbiased news coverage might ruffle certain feathers in the ruling party some time or the other, given the corruption levels and non-performance of politicians in the country.
However most of the common people who follow the media reports are not loyal to any political parties. At times even religious minorities had voted for BJP and recently too Mayawathi specially thanked Upper caste Brahmins for voting BSP to victory in UP. So the media needs to be politically neutral to remain loyal to most of its audiences. Otherwise it will end up losing credibility among majority of the viewers.
In the south, Sun TV which functions from Anna Arivalayam, DMK headquarters in Chennai, never failed to show its political inclination to the DMK party. But now there is a clash of interest between the Sun Network and the DMK after the violence in Madurai over a survey by Tamil daily, Dinakaran. So, after all these years of being a DMK sympathizer, Sun TV now has the opportunity to take the neutral tag.
From a monthly video magazine Poomalai to over twenty TV channels and seven FM radios, Sun Network has grown leaps and bounds under the leadership of Kalanithi Maran. Recipient of various awards , including the International Young Business Achiever award in 1999, Kalanithi Maran is sure on his way to become be one of the top entrepreneurs in India. Instead of wasting his valuable time in petty regional politics, he needs to spend all his focus and energy in taking the group to the national and global levels. And now the time is right for Maran to take his business more professional and less political.
Will Sun TV go the neutral way now?
What I found very disturbing in this sordid drama (‘Dynasty at war’ this week’s Outlook calls it), Azhagiri did not even receive a public reprimand! Yes, the poll was biased with it’s intentions, but everyone is entitled to their biases, no?
Slightly changing track, Vijay TV had a news segment when it started off, the news being provided by the NDTV team. Once NDTV broke off from Star, the news segment was quietly wrapped up. That was ‘neutral’ news. Another interesing twist in this that Raj TV (they managed to hand around long enough eh?), seems to have got an upshot. For fsking God’s sake Raj should stop Tamil commentary (‘????? ????? ????? ?????????’ ???) but hey that’s for another post may be.
Krishna
Raj TV is the only free to air channel to telecast the India – Bangladesh Test series. Even after knowing that the whole of India will be watching their channel, they failed to provide better commentary to the viewers. What an opportunity, wasted? Now I really doubt about their ability to manage the new channel – Kalaignar TV..