Press: Fourth Pillar of Democracy or Pillar of
Government?
.
Introduction
Democracy
is described as the government by the people, for the people or it is
considered to be the rule of the people through their elected representatives.
The democracy is balanced by the three pillars of Democracy namely The
Executive, The Legislative and The Judiciary but now in this era Democracy is
lined towards the fourth pillar that is Media.
The term Media: Fourth Pillar of Democracy is coined
by Thomas Caryle.
The merit of the democratic system is that it gives freedom of expression and a
space is given to each individual.
Whereas
media is used to aware about various social, political and economic activities,
media is like a mirror to the world which reflects the true and harsh realities
of the world, as media is being trusted by everyone and people always trust
actual and honest news. The media has its own opinion but they can publish it
in their editorials where public can assessment it.
The main purpose of the media is to provide the accurate news to all types of
views in front of people but the truth is not always shown by the media which
to people suffers and at last it losses democracy. The media has been receiving
number of contracts involving the shares transfer between the media and non
media companies and which results to show the disguised news; this can be
termed as the paid news syndrome.
India
is the biggest market in the world of media and in the fourth pillar of
democracy with over 82237 newspapers and more than 900 televisions news
channels running all over India in different languages and these numbers are
still counting day by day, now-a-days inspite of this social media platforms
are also there namely Face book, WhatsApp, Twitter and many more, mainly these
are inclined towards showing the Entertainment, politics or the corporate
advertisement.[1]
Historical Background
In
the history of India, the media has been recognized as influential, patriotic
and trustworthy in the socio, the economic and political climate of the nation.
The legislation pertaining to control media can be traced back to the British
era.
In
1799, Lord Wellesley promulgated the press regulation act which imposed a
regulation for mandatory print of names and addresses of printers, editors and
publishers as well in the newspapers. Then in 1857, a gagging act was passed
which made it mandatory to obtain license for running a printing press and gave
wide powers to the government to prohibit publication or display of content
which in its opinion was against the government. Then comes the Press
registration and Books Act, 1867 which continues to remain in force till date.
Again the vernacular press act, 1878 gave powers to the British government to
impose restrictions on publication of news and at the same time gain extreme
control over media as it is believed that people easily believe what is shown
rather than having their own opinions and a will to know the truth. So it is
the duty of the media to show what is right as it shapes the mind of people. A
number regulation came to reduce the influence of the media thereby gaining
more of British control. But revolution came in the history of the media when
the coming into force of the Constitution of India, 1950 which regarded freedom
of presses as a fundamental right. Though not expressly mentioned it is evident
that freedom of press is inherent in the right of freedom of speech and
expression.[2]
Press
as the Mother of all Other Liberties
One of the most exhaustive and illuminating
exposition of the importance of the press and its being regarded as “The mother
of all other liberties” in a democratic society is contained in the judgment of
Venkataramiah , J. in Indian Express Newspaper v. Union of India19. This case
raised important questions about the freedom of the press vis-à-vis the State’s
power of taxation. Several writ petitions were filed in the Supreme Court by
newspaper owning companies in which the validity of imposition of duty on
newsprint under the Customs Act, 1962 was challenged. It was contended on
behalf of the petitioners who consumed large quantity of newsprint in the
publication of the newspapers, periodicals, magazines, etc. that the imposition
of duty had the “direct effect of crippling the freedom of speech and
expression as guaranteed by the Constitution as it led to the increase in the
price of newspapers and the inevitable reduction of their circulation”. In this
case, Venkataramiah J. considered that press plays a very significant role in
the democratic machinery and pointed out the importance of freedom of speech
and expression in the following words – “Freedom of expression has four broad
social purposes to serve: (i) it helps an individual to attain selffulfillment,
(ii) it assists in the discovery of truth, (iii) it strengthens the capacity of
an individual in participating in decision making, and (iv) it provides a
mechanism by which it would be possible to establish a reasonable balance
between stability and social change. All members of society should be able to
form their own beliefs and communicate them freely to others. In sum, the
fundamental principle is the people's right to know. Freedom of speech and
expression should, therefore, receive a generous support from all those who
believe in the participation of people in the administration.” While
recognizing the importance of the right to freedom of the press, the Court held
that there could not be any immunity from taxation since the framers of the
Constitution had chosen not to provide for constitutional immunity against such
taxation. At the same time, they had been careful to protect the press against
local pressures by choosing to confer the power to levy taxes on newspapers on
Parliament alone and not the State Legislatures.[3]
Changing
Face of Journalism
Recently, Justice Deepak Gupta the renowned judge of the Supreme
Court on May 6, 2020 in his virtual farewell speech said that “Our laws and our
legal system are totally geared in favor of the rich and the powerful. If
somebody who is rich and powerful is behind bars then time and again, he will
approach the higher courts during the pendency of the trial till some day he
obtains an order that his trial should be expedited. This is done at the
cost of the poor litigant whose trial gets further delayed because he cannot
approach the higher court. On the other hand, if a rich person is on bail or
wants to delay a civil litigation, he can afford to approach the superior
courts time and again to delay the trial or the proceedings till the other side
gets virtually frustrated.”
There are no fewer instances where the polarized politics and
the paid news have made a remarking influence on the people.
In 2010, the Press council of India had set up a committee to investigate
violations of the journalist code of fair and objective reporting. There were
accusations that papers have rate cards for election candidates and these rates
are for different types of news coverage- for interviews, for reporting
rallies, even for trashing political opponents. In the same year the Hindu
newspaper reported that while the chief minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chavan in
elections to state assembly showed an expenditure of just 72 Euros on
advertising, stories extolling his achievements appeared for several days in
rival newspapers. If the stories had been advertising, as they appeared to be,
Chavan’s bill would have been many times higher.
Recently, in 2017, when Haryana’s CM Manohar Lal Khattar was
asked about demonetization’s effects on people by journalist Mahendra Singh, he
didn’t answer him properly and refused to say anything further. Later, that
journalist was asked to resign by Zee News channel. His fault was that he questioned the
minister.
In 2018, we all know how the scamster Nirav Modi fled the
country last month with his entire family and on how he perpetrated a Rs 11,400
crore-rupee scam in the seven years from 2011 to 2018 (which includes not just
three years of the Congress-led UPA tenure but also almost four years of
BJP-led NDA rule), viewers could wonder if the news-channel is overlooking the
wood for a tree![4]
Recently in 2018, Senior advocate Indira Jaising, assisting the
court as an amicus curiae, told a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur, S Abdul
Nazeer and Deepak Gupta that the media was running “parallel trial” in
sub-judice matters and the court should frame guidelines on how to report the
cases of crime against women.[5]
Conclusion
In any democracy, weakening of pillars is always damaging. We
need to reach the main trunk, to trim the vicious aerial roots that are
spreading and poisoning the society. So, in a nutshell, the media is forced to
be a puppet of the government. They are not allowed to go against the
government, they can’t question them. Whatever policies the government makes
should follow that blindly. But in this way, there won’t be any medium for the
public to know the truth of the government and its policies. In the hide of
freedom of expression the watchdogs of democracy are having a nexus with the
political parties, corporate and big organization for their own petty gains.
The greedy media is killing the people and the democracy, not at the rate of
authoritarianism but killing the same.[6]
[1] http://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-3487-media-fourth-pillar-of-democracy.html
[2] https://blog.ipleaders.in/media-fourth-pillar-democracy/
[3] http://ijrar.com/upload_issue/ijrar_issue_20543177.pdf
[4] https://blog.ipleaders.in/media-fourth-pillar-democracy/
[5] Ibid
[6] https://blog.ipleaders.in/media-fourth-pillar-democracy/
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