Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu flags ills of 'instant journalism'

Hyderabad: Expressing concern over the future of media and journalism and sanctity of news in the face of disruptive technological advances, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday urged all stakeholders to ensure credible journalism, since the media is an effective tool of empowerment of people for informed public discourse.

He spoke at length on 'Journalism: Past, Present and Future,' while delivering the M V Kamat Memorial Endowment Lecture in virtual mode from Hyderabad. He said, "Yellow journalism seeks to cloud facts by resorting to eye-catching headlines and promotes distortion and misinformation. Journalism based on taking up false crusades, as witnessed in the case of suicide of a film actor recently, is a fellow traveller. Both are aimed at increasing readership and viewership and should be avoided."

The VP voiced concern over the implications of growing 'instant journalism' triggered by emergence of Internet and social media expansion in the form of propagation of fake news and erosion of journalistic norms and ethos. Naidu referred to financial implications for traditional media like newspapers with their journalistic products being leveraged by technology giants and not sharing the revenues with the concerned. He noted that Internet has disrupted the revenue and reporting models, with serious implications.

The VP urged media persons to keep news and views strictly separate, without allowing each of them masquerading as the other. He stressed the need to stem the decline in journalistic values and ethos. He complimented media organisations for standing up to the crisis unleashed by the Covid pandemic and sustaining the cause of empowerment of people.

Pro Vice Chancellor of Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) Dr HS Bhallal, Vice-Chancellor Lt General MD Venkatesh, Director of Manipal Institute of Communication Dr Padma Rani, and members of administrative and academic departments were among those present.