Mass media biased towards Anna Hazare's cause: Experts

There has been saturation coverage by television channels of Anna Hazare's fast reporting every twist and turn in the protest saga 24x7 for the last about two weeks. But has it been critical and unbiased or one-sided in approval?

By and large, media experts feel that television coverage was biased in favour of the 74-year-old activist, uncritical in its sweep and adulatory sometimes.

There was a lone voice of support for news television channels from noted journalist and Editor and Managing Director of Pioneer newspaper Chandan Mitra, who feels it was not the case.

"By its very nature, television is a very biased medium. Whenever a big issue or a campaign like this crops up, news channels try to be on top of it. This is the trend that prevails everywhere," says Bhaskar Rao, director, Centre for Media Studies.

"But unfortunately in the Anna Hazare case, I think TV channels have overdone it," Rao told PTI.

The main issue here is corruption, which is the elephant, but the media has given extensive publicity to "the elephant riders, which is Anna Hazare and his team", he said.

Concurs noted television commentator Karan Thapar, who says the media, especially the television, appeared to be siding with the Anna campaign and not fully representing the viewpoints of the government.

"They (TV channels) have been less than comprehensive in exploring the divisions or contradictions in Anna's side. They did not expose several of Anna's demands which may create serious constitutional problems," he said.

Echoing similar views, Vinod Mehta, Editor-in-Chief of Outlook magazine, said, "I think the electronic media was just carried away by the populist mood and failed to be critical on some aspects of Team Anna."

"Team Anna played several tricks, including using the life of the Gandhian (Hazare) for some sort of leverage. The media should have revealed and discussed those to make their coverage a balanced one," Mehta said.

"There have been a lot of debates on how the government mishandled the whole issue, but hardly there was any such discussion to expose the weak points of the Anna campaign."

According to Thapar, what the media did do was to project the deep national concern over corruption.

"It reflected the anger and frustration of the people. But in terms of critical, objective and balanced coverage, it gave the impression of siding with Anna and of not fully representing the view points of the government."

On whether the media has been able to uphold journalistic ethics while covering the issue, the experts said they don't feel the media was not at their best.

"When it becomes a competition for TRP, ethics hardly comes into play," says Rao.

Thapar believes, "It seems the media has undermined the ethics a bit while trying to reflect the national mood, which they also have helped create and enhance."

"One role the media played was to ventilate  public opinion, but in doing so they also played the role of encouraging and of siding with it, which is wrong," he said.

"There is a lot of introspection the media has to do on what and how they have to cover a big issue," Mehta added.

Mitra, however, has a different take on this. "I think the media has to reflect what the public mood is. Some excesses could have happened here and there, but I would not blame the newspapers or TV for that. I think the media did a good job in the entire thing," he said.