Lecture | Vanishing Humour from Life

PLEASE BE THERE, IF YOU ARE IN SAMBALPUR.

Column | Jagate Thiba Jetedina

Samaja Saptahika 18-24 Nov. 2017

Article | Challenges before Media in India in a Digital era

Challenges before the Media in India in the Digital Age

Dr. Mrinal Chatterjee

Professor and Regional Director,

Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC),

Eastern Regional Campus, Dhenkanal, Odisha

mrinalchatterjeeiimc@gmail.com

News-media in India have faced several challenges since its beginning in 1780 with the publication of the first newspaper Hicky’s Bengal Gazzete like State repression, poor investment, weak infrastructure, non-professional leadership and indifferent management, lack of trained manpower, poor business and revenue generation. However media survived the challenges and managed to grow- both horizontally and vertically. The growth accelerated in 1980s thanks mainly to the technological advancements and more so in 1990s thanks to liberalization, globalization and further technological advancement in information and communication technology ICT. Internet was introduced in India in mid 1990s and gradually digital era dawned. Initially it tremendously contributed to the growth of media. However, as the technology began to be accessible to almost everybody with the help of cheap and user friendly devices and everybody started using social media (the term was coined in 2004) new and unforeseen challenges began to raise its head before mainstream news media. So much so it is now seemingly threatening the right practice of Journalism and its very existence.

The challenges could be grouped under three heads:

1. Concept of News

2. Authenticity of News

3. Business of Newsmedia

Concept of News:

In earlier era journalists used to be the custodians of news. They used to define and mark what is news. What the readers ought to read and ought to see. They used to be the gatekeepers. In the digital era, with social media becoming the major platform to access news- that, gradually is changing. In absence of a gatekeeper, anything and everything is going by the name of news. Credibility and accountability- the two hallmark of journalism are being brushed aside. This in alignment with the post-truth mentality is posing a huge challenge to the old school journalism.

Authenticity of News:

With improved technology for creation and distribution of media content and social media providing easy platform at a global scale, anybody can create news or what appears like news. Fake news has become a big menace. As public opinion becomes more important to determine who rules the country and what should the policies be- the tools to impact public opinion also has become most sought after. This precisely is the reason for the proliferation of fake news. It is eroding the credibility of news and in a queer way public faith on journalists. There is a need to contain this menace. The challenges pertain to – who will do it, and how? Will the State do it? Will the companies providing large digital platforms like Facebook or Google do it? Should they be allowed to ‘dictate’ what is news? And how will it be done?

Business of Newsmedia:

Digital technology has made copying and distributing content easier. This has severely impacted the business of all media, which rely on monetising the content for its survival and growth. This has also raised serious questions on issues like copyright, source credibility and authenticity.

Every challenge is also an opportunity to explore new ways and possibilities. Newsmedia in India have had faced and survived numerous challenges. It will find ways to engage with and surmount the challenges posed by Digital technology and public scepticism, which I believe stems from over expectation from newsmedia. This, in a way is a good sign. Over expectation has in it an element of faith in media’s capacity and capabilities. The major challenge before newsmedia is to meet the public expectation.

***

 Sent for publication in PCI journal, 2017.

The Great Indian Editors | Harish Chandra Mukherjee

The Great Indian Editors 3 | Dr. Mrinal Chatterjee

Harish Chandra Mukherjee: Brief Life, Big Impact

Harish Chandra Mukherjee, remembered for being one of the first intellectuals to usher in liberal democratic ideas in British India and for being a fearless and crusading editor through the newspaper (Hindoo Patriot) he steered to glory died early, at the age of just 37. He left a legacy that was hard to match, and a paper, which had made a reputation of supporting social causes and fighting for the masses.

Harish Chandra Mukherjee was born on April 1824 at Bhowanipur in Kolkata. His ancestors belonged to Sridharpur in the Baradhaman District. His father Ramdhan Mukherjee had three wives and Harish was born to his third wife Rukhmini Devi. Ramdhan Mukherjee was a man of modest means. Harish Chandra studied as a ‘free student’ at Union school. Financial   problems forced him to give up his studies and sought out to earn his livelihood. Mukherjee got a clerical post in the office of Military Auditor General through competitive examination and started working there. Through his education was discontinued in early days, he learnt history, politics, law and English by himself.

He started writing columns in newspapers like the Hindu Intelligencer edited by Kasi Prasad Ghosh and the Bengal Recorder edited by Ramgopal Ghosh while he was serving the office of Military Auditor General. His writings were critical of the policies of the government. It attracted attention of the intelligentsia. 

In 1852, he became a member of the British Indian Association, one of the first political associations in British India and was active in social and political dialogues and discourses.

The Hindoo Patriot, a weekly in English language was first published on January 6, 1853 by Madhusudan Ray, under the editorship of Girish Chandra Ghosh. It began to be published every Thursday from Kalakar Street where Madhusudan Ray's press was located. Harish Chandra Mukherjee was involved with the paper from the beginning. Gradually his involvement became more intense and he began to take keen interest in the editorial matter. Around June 1855, he bought the newspaper from Girish Chandra Ghosh in the name of his elder brother Haran Chandra Mukherjee as he was still serving at the office of Military Auditor General he could not have bought it.

Harish Chandra however took charge of Hindoo Patriot in 1856-57 and soon through his remarkable journalism imbibed with a keen sense of national sentiment, not only made the paper the voice of the oppressed peasants but also made it as the first national newspaper of India.

The Hindoo Patriot under Harish Chandra played a vital role against the tyranny of the Indigo Planters, particularly during the post-Sepoy Mutiny period. In mid-19th century the British traders aided by the officers tried to increase the cultivation of Indigo. The farmers were forced to cultivate Indigo, even though it was not remunerative for them. The coercion reached to a barbaric level. When the farmers revolted and refused to grow indigo, a reign of terror was unleashed to suppress them forcibly.  Mukherjee through the Hindoo Patriot, wrote about this movement and thus played a key role in arousing public sentiments against the alien rulers. Regular editorials against such tyranny on the poor hapless indigo farmers attracted public attention and evoked universal condemnation from a large cross-section of educated Indians.

Other social issues highlighted by the Hindoo Patriot in its columns were Women’s Education and Hindu Widow Remarriage. As regards women’s education, the paper advised everybody to follow the lead given by John Drinkwater Bethune and on the question of widow remarriage it sided with the reformists and supported the cause of legalising such marriages. The paper, however, opposed the implementation of divorce laws in Hindu society.

Although the principal objective of the Hindoo Patriot was to focus anomalies in British Government in India, it pinned very high hopes on the liberalism of the British public and parliament. Thus, it always advised Indians to look for the redressal of their grievances to the British public and parliament whenever the British Indian administration failed to redress their complaints. Again, the focusing of multiple anomalies relative to British rule was never intended to tarnish the image of the British Indian government. Rather, criticism of anomalies was intended to make the administration aware of public grievances and their causes so as to enable the government to effect their speedy rectification. To the Hindoo Patriot, British rule in India was not blind folded imperialism but something highly noble to be supported for public welfare. Indians had still much to learn from the English and English rule was accordingly to be endured.

Thus, when during the Sepoy Revolt, the government imposed press restriction in India, by Act XV of 1857, and papers like the Hindu Intelligencer suspended publication in protest, the Hindoo Patriot made no particular grievance of it.

Many contemporary historians have lambasted Harish Chandra for being ‘soft to the alien rulers’. However, many hailed him as one of the first intellectuals to usher in liberal democratic thoughts in British India. In his paper titled Harish Chandra Mukherjee and the Hindu Patriot: the Diffusion of Liberal Democratic Ideas in Bengal in the Mid-nineteenth Century, (published in International Research Journal of Interdisciplinary & Multidisciplinary Studies (IRJIMS), Volume-III, Issue-V, June 2017, Page No. 314-320)  Abhishek Karmakar writes:

A staunch journalist as well as liberal modernist Harish Chandra bore almost all the indispensable features of modern liberal democracy such as, raising questions and criticizing freely against a despotic authority, arguing for the defense of equality and most of all acknowledging and ascribing most importance on public opinion in governance. He fearlessly raised questions against various arbitrary policies of Lord Dalhousie. Harish Chandra opposed Dalhousie‘s policy of annexation and confiscation of different provinces of India like Nagpur and Jhansi. Considering the policy as ‘foolish‘,  he attributed it as ‘the source of discontent in the country’, which prepared the ground for the Great Revolt of 1857.

The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 provided him with a platform to raise the issue of being Indian and solving all our problems by ourselves. The political discourse during this time was not properly defined in Bengal, and hence through his writings in the Hindu Patriot he tried to inculcate a patriotic feeling.  He wrote “The time is nearly come when all Indian questions must be solved by Indians. The mutinies have made patent to the English public what must be the effects of politics in which the native is allowed no voice.

Besides ascribing most importance on the public opinion of the governed Harish Chandra, unlike contemporary newspapers, both the vernaculars and the English as well as contemporary political modernizers who even attributed the Queen‘s Proclamation (1858) as the Magna Carta of India magniloquently raised question, ‘where is the guarantee that the promises, though coming out of the Queen, will be honoured?’

Though Hindoo Patriot was an influential paper, but it did not do well financially. And as it was writing against the Indigo planters there were several litigations, which drained Mukherjee’s resources.

Harish Chandra died on June 16, 1861 at the age of 37. At the time of his death as material property he only had his house and Hindoo Patriot paper. Mukherjee’s widow was targeted with different court cases by the Indigo merchants. His house went on auction and Hindoo Patriot was almost on the verge of closure.

It was Kaliprasanna Singha who bought the paper and saved it from extinction. Kaliprasanna initially handed over managemnet of the magazine to Shambhu Chandra Mookerjee. Girish Chandra Ghosh who had severed all ties with Hindoo Patriot three years ago, was moved by the plight of Harish Chandra Mukherjee's bereaved mother and helpless widow and took up the editorship again. After he left Hindoo Patriot again in November that year, the paper was bought over by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Kristodas (in Bengali the pronunciation is Krishnadas) Pal became its new editor, who edited the paper 23 years and took it to greater glory.

Harish Chandra Mukherjee was one of the first editors of British India, who brought in liberal democratic thoughts without bowing down to the authorities or towing the official line. He was one of the first editors who showed what a sensible pen and meaningful discourse can do.

Long after his death a large public park in Bhowanipur, Kolkata and a road has been named after Harish Chandra Mukherjee.

***

Edited version of this article has been published in Vidura Oct-Dec. 2017 issue.

 This series  is being published in Vidura.

Science Film Festival

Column | Window Seat

Window Seat | Mrinal Chatterjee

12.11.17

Public Service Broadcasting

NOVEMBER 12, is observed as the Public Service Broadcasting Day in India to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi’s maiden visit to All India Radio (AIR) studio. On November 12, 1947, Gandhi spoke on radio to the refugees from Pakistan, stationed at the camp at Kurukshetra. It was Gandhi’s first and last visit to the studio of AIR. He was a communicator par excellence. He had always emphasised on the service and advocacy aspect of media, two important pillars of public service broadcasting.

Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) is the broadcasting made, financed and controlled by the public, for the public. It is neither commercial nor state-owned. It is supposed to be free from political interference and pressure from commercial forces. Through PSB, citizens are informed, educated and also entertained. When guaranteed with pluralism, programming diversity, editorial independence, appropriate funding, accountability and transparency, PSB can serve as a cornerstone of democracy.

Public service broadcasting is based on the principles of universality of service, diversity of programming, provision for minority audiences including the disadvantaged, sustaining an informed electorate and cultural and educational enrichment. The concept was conceived and fostered within an overarching ideal of cultural and intellectual enlightenment of society. The roots of public service broadcasting are generally traced to documents prepared in support of the establishment of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) by Royal Charter on January 1, 1927. This corporation grew out of recommendations of the Crawford Committee appointed by the British postmaster general in August 1925. Included in those recommendations was the creation of a public corporation, which would serve as a trustee for the national interest in broadcasting. It was expected that as public trustee, the corporation would emphasise serious, educational and cultural programming that would elevate the level of intellectual and aesthetic tastes of the audience. The conception of the BBC was that it would be insulated from both political and commercial influence. Therefore, the corporation was a creation of the crown rather than Parliament and funding to support the venture was determined to be derived from license fees on radio (and later television) receivers rather than advertising. Within the governance of national authorities, public service broadcasting was recreated across western European democracies and beyond, in various forms. At the core of each was a commitment to operate radio and television services in public interest. The principal paradigm adopted to accomplish this mission was the establishment of a state-owned broadcasting system that either functioned as a monopoly or at least as the dominant broadcasting institution. Funding came in the form of license fees, taxes or similar noncommercial options. Examples of these organisations include the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Radiodiffusion Television Francaise, Swedish Television Company, Radiotelevisione Italiana, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Australian Broadcasting Corporation. While the ideals on which these and other systems were based suggested services that were characterised by universality and diversity, there were notable violations of these ideals, especially in Germany, France and Italy. In some cases the state-owned broadcasting system became the political mouthpiece for whoever was in power. Such abuse of the broadcasting institutions’ mandate made public service broadcasting the subject of frequent political debates.

Public service broadcasting, differs from broadcasting for purely commercial or political reasons because of its specific remit, which is essentially to operate independently of those holding economic and political power. Its agenda is different. Its objective is public service. It provides the whole society with information, culture, education and entertainment; it enhances social, political and cultural citizenship and promotes social cohesion.

Both AIR and Doordarshan have been envisaged to work as public service broadcasters. By and large both these organisations, especially AIR have managed to retain its character as public service broadcasters. Here is wishing them a long journey.

Dog

Looking at the way some of my friends love and care for their dogs and some youngsters cuddle street dogs, I always thought this. Now research proves me right. Humans have more empathy for dogs than people.

Why so? I put this question on my facebook wall and got several answers. Not surprisingly nobody questioned the result of the study. Almost all the respondents more or less accepted this.

Among the answers I got were: Dog is not selfish, human beings are. Dog is not treacherous, human beings are. Dogs are easily tameable, human beings are not. Dog is not dominant in nature, most of the human beings are.

As I went through the answers and saw the way pet dogs are pampered at some homes, I strongly wish to be reborn as one.

Life moves in circles

The first motorised vehicle that I bought for myself in 1989 was a second hand Luna. Gearless. Twenty eight years later I bought my first car. A Honda City Automatic. Gearless. 
Life, it is often said moves in circles. The beginning and the end have uncanny resemblance in some form.

Tailpiece: Election Special

A drunk man at the voting booth  stands before the voting machine for ten minutes. The Polling Officer asks, what happened? Any problem?

The man answers, No problem with the machine. But there is another big Problem.

Last night somebody gave me two bottles and asked me to vote for a particular symbol. I can’t remember the symbol now.

(Courtesy: Social Media)

***

Mrinal Chatterjee, a journalist turned media academician lives in Dhenkanal, a small Central Odisha town. He also writes fiction.

mrinalchatterjee@ymail.com

This column is published every Sunday in Sikkim Times and posted in www.orissadiary.com

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