P Kharel

Informed and free voice accounts for a democratic choice. In today’s media saturated society, it would be a great anomaly if critical commentators were to be deprived of platforms for airing views aimed at reaching out to larger audiences they otherwise would not be able to have access to. Some people gloat over the quantitative growth of media outlets and hardly spare views on their quality. The presence of all-pervasive media notwithstanding, conditions might just mean merely many of the same content repeated in the various channels.
Absence of competitive drive for variety by way of the topics, range and reliable information sources fails to contribute to wholesome choices and drives for a rather drab collection of channels embroiled in cacophony. However, whatever the pace and progress of information technology, news media will continue to make their presence felt, whether the fare dished out is professionally honest or not.
Dramatic advance in information technology has created and expanded the potential of media reach. With it, audience choice can also vary. It is an opportunity for media operators to tailor their services—contents—to specific target groups in order to ensure that they know precisely the taste and demands of the intended audiences whereas the latter, too, know where and what exactly to expect to address their interests. But professionalism is basic quality for the news media to earn public credibility, shedding all shades of biases and prejudices.
Mixed practices
If audience attention accounts for the first and foremost priority in the cut-throat competition fostered by the world of tabloid journalism, mission journalism denotes partisan journalism bent on promoting certain interest groups at the expense of others. Journalist Kishore Nepal is deeply disappointed with some aspects of journalism in Nepal: “Today an individual’s highest …credentials are determined by the endorsement of party leaders, only after which the seal of guarantee of his future is made.”
By any measure, the broadcasting sector in Nepal stands out in the whole of South Asia. In fact, it can be described as freer than most radio broadcasting services in much of the world, the single-most factor being their right to freely broadcast full-fledged news bulletins. No other South Asian country offers such provision. Radio broadcasting in Nepal has, indeed, come a long way since Radio Sagarmatha went on air in 1997 as the first non-government radio service in South Asia.
However, existing media regulations in a country does not automatically echo the level of public trust a radio service—or, for that matter, any branch of the news media—enjoys. Scandinavian countries have been reading since very long newspapers directly linked to political parties. Such newspapers constitute well over 80 per cent in countries like Denmark and Norway. In fact, a study commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism showed the average level of trust in the news in 37 countries in 2018 to be 44 per cent.
The press in the US, too, is not immune to favouring specific political groups. Surveys undertaken by the Gallop Poll indicated only one-third of the total American media audiences trust the media in their country. In 2006, Cardiff University carried out a study that showed 54 per cent news articles in Britain carried public relations bias. In India, paid news is acutely present.
With only five per cent of Americans in the age group of 18 to 29 reading newspapers, the challenge ahead is enormous. This would mean audiences migrating to different platforms dishing out contents other than pure news. Numerous information outlets and diversified media offer many options. As a result, the attention span of audiences would shrink; so would revenue prospects. Reading, listening and viewing audiences, consequently, cultivate varied choices.
Rick Dunham, co-director of Tsinghua University’s Global Business Journalism Programme, notes that the United States presidents have aired dissatisfaction with the American media for about as long as the nation has existed. Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the US Declaration of Independence, wrote in a letter to an editor in 1807: “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.” Dunham also recalls how the American Civil War hero President Grant complained that he had been “the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever equalled in political history”.
In societies where free speech is guaranteed by law, politicians and other influential persons try befriending members of the press for extending their influence. John F. Kenndey in the 1960s was known to have cultivated friendship with influential Newsweek magazine’s Benjamin Bradlee when the latter covered the Kennedy administration. Bradlee subsequently became the Washington Post editor. Kennedy’s successor at the White House Lyndon Johnson periodically consulted with media expert Walter Lippmann on current issues.
For that matter, in the new century, Barak Obama arranged for dinner meetings with political columnists and TV interviewers. He gave one American TV journalist 17 interviews during his eight years in office. President Donald Trump has created a record of sorts by giving interview 25 times to Fox News and the Fox Business Network. Eight of Britain’s 12 national dailies are owned by companies. Four of them account for 80 per cent of the country’s total newspaper sales. Two owners, including Rupert Murdoch, account for 52 per cent of the total newspaper circulation and online news audiences in Britain.
South Asia’s news media history also gives an interesting insight. It calls for a critical and comparative study of media growth together with the ups and downs in terms of free speech and professionally fair journalism in a region that largely suffered colonial rule for centuries. Initially, a regular journal focusing on practices in news media in the region would go a long way in enabling journalists and academics to be abreast of important issues for discussions and debate.

Erosion of credibility
Regular interactions between journalists serving the region’s 1.75 billion people should enable them to be updated by sharing and learning from their collective success stories and challenges confronting their respective sectors. Media groups could chip in to finance such publication(s) in order to provide some wholesome food for thoughts and knowledge. As for media situation across the world, erosion in its credibility poses a disturbing read. Vigilance against biases and constant effort at collecting the best and presenting the same an effective and interesting manner ensures drawing consistently large numbers of audiences. It is disturbing that despite the existence of multiple channels covering print and broadcast media, voices of deep despair over the trustworthiness continue unabated.

(Former chief editor of The Rising Nepal, P. Kharel has been writing for this daily since 1973)