Implausible Indian media suffers trust deficit

During 2017 increasing numbers of people express no faith in the mainstream media. Main stream media houses owned by business houses are biased and are TRP driven. Their focus is on earnings, breaking news, advertisements and hardly get any chance to verify the veracity of the news. Driven by competition, the media and journalists became corrupt, lacked ethics & morals, irresponsible, spread fake stories and fake propaganda etc leading to erosion of public faith. With media suffering enormous trust deficit, their viewership has eroded and people started depending more and more on social media.

• During the last two decades, rules and norms of journalism have been cast aside amidst the frenzied competition. Loose allegations, without even the basic verification, are broadcast and published with little fear of defamation. When today's news is the next hour's history, then truth can lose out to sensationalism with worrying consequences for media credibility.
• Journalism is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information. The purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments.
• Journalism must be fair and accurate through objective methods and managing bias. Journalism is different from other forms of communication and that is what make it indispensable to democratic societies.
• Our journalists of present days are simply presstitutes not journalists.        Presstitute is defined as an individual reporter or news broadcaster, or a media news group, who reports to be unbiased but is in fact tailoring their news to suit someone's goal of corporations or big businesses or political parties.
• The implausible Indian media is known for spreading fake stories and fake propaganda and none believes its news stories. The journalists turned to be PR agents of few political parties to earn benefits.
• There are now more than 500 channels across the country, a third of which are news channels. Add over a 100 million newspaper copies that are sold every day, more than 8 million internet users, and the image of a news-driven society is complete. When consumption reaches such mammoth proportions, the media is bound to play a larger-than-life role in our lives.
• Media is one of the most corrupt institutions with no ethics, no morals, no patriotism and no responsibility. They are divided by names and united by TRP ratings. In most countries people won't trust media content which has vested interests and exploit the situation for gaining TRPs.
• Every night we see news anchors to play judge, jury and executioner. From being neutral and detached observers of the news, media have arrogated to themselves the right to speak for the nation. If you look at media now, all the hosts of these other shows are interviewing themselves. The guests are a prop for the anchors.
• Very often Indian journalists use silly issues blown out of proportions to create panic among public. In India media and people form Lutyens club of Delhi and play main role in spreading fake stories. The poor and middle classes have no idea what exactly is the truth and tend to believe these media stories as truthful.
• With trust deficit, news channels have turned out be gossip boxes. With emergence of social media, main stream media has lost relevance and viewership declining.
• The media pretends it is speaking for the anonymous masses but the same audience believes it has the right to hold the media accountable. The media, which holds the rest of society to a higher standard of accountability doesn't adhere to those same rigorous standards. 
• History reveals that the more democratic a society, the more news and information it tends to have. The media is supposed to reflect the opinion and voice of the unheard where as in reality they are for rich and influential people giving rise to total trust deficit.
• The media as a whole must not be judged by the flawed behaviour of a few. The media is made up of hundreds of committed journalists, reporters and news gatherers all of whom do a tough honest day's job in bringing you the news without fear or favour. It is they who uphold the spirit of journalism.
• A recent poll suggested that 97% of those polled did not trust journalists. Another poll ranked the media just above real estate agents and politicians in the trust factor. Restoring the media trust deficit is a distant mirage.

In the infamous 2G Scam case of Rs.176,000 crores, the special CBI court judge, on Dec 20, 2017, acquitted all accused stating that prosecution has miserably failed to prove any of the charges against any of the accused. Special court judge said that “a huge scam was seen by everyone where there was none. Some people created a scam by artfully arranging a few selected facts and exaggerating things beyond recognition to astronomical levels.” Former PM Manmohan Singh said the 2G scam was a massive media propaganda against the UPA without any proof.