Is the Media of Today Upholding Good Journalistic Standards?

Is the media of today upholding good journalistic standards?

It is said that media is the fourth pillar of the democracy, because it keeps the people aware about the political turmoil on one hand, and it pressurize the political leaders to show accountability to the people on the other. Today, in India the face of media has changed a lot and in-fact many times it has proved its efficiency. The media is actively involved in the national level affairs relating to the social justice, law and order, constitution and many other things.

Many times the media has played an extremely positive role by creating a public opinion towards a thing. Recently in the campaign of social activist Anna Hazaray, media played a big part in making the campaign a success. There are many other examples when the media played a great role in providing justice to the people as like in the case of Jessica Lal murder, if the media had not given the case so much of hype there were hardly any chances that the culprits would have got the sentence of life. Moreover many times certain scams were uncovered by medic through sting channel operations, although the legality of these operations might be altogether different debate but still they did some social good by it.

But only on these facts we can't conclude that the media of our nation has touched the height of high journalism. Media of nation can only be said to be of high standard when it is aware of its societal responsibilities and it is actively involved in it. But in this regard I would rather say with great sorrow that media of our nation has failed in its duty towards the country. It is correct that the media has been successful in giving itself a professional touch according to the changing conditions of globalization, but on the other hands it could not maintain a fair functioning of its duties towards nation at large.

The truth is that even when the hype of media results in positive yields, those incidents are not a product of the consciousness of media for the society at large but instead a part of their strategy to create reputation and money. As like the case of the death of Jessica Lal was given so much hype by the government, but in rural areas everyday thousands of people are killed , many types entire families are killed but our media hardly take those incidents with that seriousness with which it takes the case of Jessica and alike. In several states many people are dying because of hunger and malnutrition, but such things never get enough attention from the fourth pillar of our democracy. One the one hand at regional level many agitations are taking place, which are even continued from years but they got never justice from the side of media as like Sharmila is agitating from years to improve the plight of the people of North-East, but the media never give it enough attention.

Although in today's time media needs to be professional,