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Reforms should be discussed before implementation

It is out of the way: Foreign equity in print media. Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj had reopened the question by saying the matter was under consideration. Her unequivocal statement before the All India Editors Guild that the government had endorsed the 1955 Cabinet resolution to ban the entry of foreign equity in India's print media has ended the debate. Explaining why she raised the issue in the first instance, she said the government wanted to know if the conditions that existed when the first resolution was passed still prevailed. It discovered, she said, that the situation had not changed in any way.

That Swaraj spoke to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee before making the statement suggests that there will be no afterthought, no quibbling, no reopening of the issue for sometime. One is not opposed to technical, scientific or medical journals so long as they are reprints of the original. But magazines relating to fashion, housing, beauty or consumer goods cannot be called technical magazines. One healthy fallout of the debate has been the government's realisation that reforms should be discussed before implementation.

The proposal of foreign equity in the print media was publicly discussed and discarded. Indeed, all the three concerned bodies -- the Indian Newspapers Society, the All India Editors Guild and the National Union of Journalists -- passed resolutions to protest the participation of foreign equity. Newspapers and television networks also commented on it. Only then did the government come to the conclusion. Swaraj underlined the point at the editors's meeting. She remarked at that time: "We should have consulted, for example, the steel people before introducing reforms in their sector."

In the future, the government should hold consultations with the industry concerned before introducing 'reforms' in that sector. Woefully, the nation remembers how then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao and his finance minister Manmohan Singh introduced reforms stealthily. The public found out about them only after they were implemented. The entire philosophy of self-reliance was jettisoned, without any participation from the public which had been fed on the dose of 'development with tears' for four decades. The BJP-led government introduced another set of reforms and did not hold any debate either.

The other day the prime minister told me informally that he would like reforms to be discussed in the open before implementation. "We should have done it earlier," he admitted. Swaraj's exercise appears to be the first step in that direction. The government should make this a policy decision and not be pushed around either by the World Bank or the IMF.

Coming back to foreign equity in print media, the criticism that some editors and journalists have voiced at various fora need to be taken seriously. Their contention is that a handful of press barons have pulled down the profession from its high pedestal of social responsibility to become a money-making machine which has reduced newspapers to just being products. Such newspapers have spoiled readers.

You open some newspapers. Their pages are full of pictures of young models, actors and actresses in various stages of undress. There are pages on models, actresses, supermodels, actors, fashion designers -- people you have not heard of -- garnished with information on what they love to hear, what kind of attire they like best, what they do when they relax, what they think of love and sex and such trivia.

The special city pages of these newspapers look like a cross between a cheap fashion journal and a puerile film magazine, full of gossip and crude colour pictures. This cannot be the right way to publish a newspaper. It must have news. It must have information. It must educate the public about events with background information and editorial comment.

A few owners use technology to justify foreign equity in the print media. Technology is a desirable thing. But technology can never replace thinking, no matter how new or stunning it is. What you put on a computer will always be more important than the computer itself.

Also, there has to be some defined relationship between the price of a newspaper and its size. An average Pakistan newspaper is priced at Rs 12. Newspapers earn revenue from circulation. The price war in India has pushed the weak to the wall. Competition of ideas and excellence is understandable, but not consumerism and coarseness. Small and big newspapers have to survive because they represent different points of view, local, regional, others. This is essential for the strength of democracy.

Then there is the television revolution. Television has spanned the distance between print and broadcasting. It has vastly widened the scope of journalism and, like instant coffee, it has become a part of our life.

The time has come for a deeper discussion on the media. Some rules have to be adopted without infringing the freedom of expression in any way. What should be considered is the kind of relationship between one type of medium and the other -- print, television, radio, the Internet. The linkage of different media is one issue. The attitude of owners is another. Where do the public, readers and viewers fit in?

I suggest the government appoint a commission to look into various aspects of the media and make recommendations for its free flow, without any stranglehold or profit motives. The changes in the media should be studied by experts. They may come up with answers to the questions which baffle and embarrass the media. The Centre has appointed two press commissions since Independence. The first in the fifties, the second in the seventies when television began to take shape. The Internet was not even in the picture then. This time, the media commission needs to cover print, television, radio and the Internet.

Kuldip Nayar