Paid News

Paid news has become a very popular means of conveying manipulated truth (at times truth), to the public, making it harder for them to understand its authenticity.

        Concentration of media ownership across different segments like TV, Printing media, Internet etc. has triggered more paid news. It also becomes a very strong and easy source of financial help for small scale media houses, competing against bigger players in the market. But the problem which it can create is that people might get very wrong perception of someone mistakenly or might get an ultra positive notion about someone, and any such false article, if circulated among citizens, especially during elections, can turn around results dramatically. It becomes even more difficult to identify the correctness of the news when there is same news everywhere and user eventually tends to start believing it as a fact.

       There has to be strong regulations on this. PCI should pitch in, whenever they find a case of false information supplied by media houses and impose heavy penalties on them. In case of repetition of such case by same authority, it should suspend its activity temporarily, sending a strong message to other media players. Individual reader or viewer can go to court for any such wrong doings, but it’s generally ignored unless his interest has been affected. Many a times the common man gets hesitant, seeing the enormous power of the media company.

       There has to be a check on concentration of ownership across different segments which otherwise creates monopoly, which is not so good for democracy. Although it questions Right to speech and expression, and to an extent, Right to free trade and business, but in the broader perspective of the welfare of the state, it needs to curtail such powers of dominance by bigger players.