“Opposition space shrinking”

Jammu: Emphasizing on media neutrality, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh Chairman-JKNPP and former Minister said that several newspapers in J&K having become marketing agencies in the hand of ruling party and some political syndicates, the fourth pillar of democracy was getting debilitated and weakened. Asserting that media had a very significant role as an enabler of democracy and in facilitating a better educated society, Mr. Singh said that only a selected media houses were acting as true guardians of democracy and were performing their role as watch-dogs to protect public interest. He said that such media houses needed to be complimented for their bold and fearless reporting thereby enabling the public to form a fair opinion about the functioning of the govt. He said that several newspapers and media houses had incurred the wrath of the govt and even suffered immensely in view of their truthful and fair projection of the govt’s role besides its omissions and commissions and even penalized by the latter. The role of such media houses shall continue to be remembered and eulogized even after this dark era of political authoritarianism his ended, remarked Mr. Singh.

 Accusing the BJP leadership and its political allies of having hijacked most of the media houses and newspapers, Mr. Singh regretted that such malicious actors were using the press for promotion of their own political parties and their vested interests. Some of them were creating an extremely unhealthy discourse by creating bubbles of one sided information by either ignoring the opposition all together or downplaying its leadership. While the BJP and JKAP leaders were being projected out of proportion by these media houses, the space of opposition leaders was consistently shrinking. Larger than life characters of certain insignificant and opportunist leaders were being created through magnified media coverages while disallowing proper coverage to the version of the opposition leaders. This would surely amount to a deviation from the role and responsibilities of fair reporting and code of conduct evolved for the media in the democratic jurisprudence, asserted Mr. Singh.

Defending the freedom of press, Mr. Harsh said that ruling parties must refrain from manipulations and use of coercive measures against the media and ensure a balanced coverage to all the stake holders in a democratic system. It needs to be ensured that all are listened and the community has access to communications both from ruling party as well as opposition.