Modi and his relationship with conventional media

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses” - Malcolm X

Press has been touted as the fourth pillar of democracy . It is supposed to be the watchdog and bridge between government and its subject . It is a powerful mechanism to voice the citizens concern towards government and help create opinion in absence of media general public cannot know about what kind of bills and acts are passed in the parliament, and what are their positive and negative effects in the society. If media person close their eyes the government officials will do what they want, so media is "suppose" to plays a very important and "impartial" role between government activities and general public, so much so that it is said that the freedom of media is the guarantee of success of republic government. Thus the conventional media enjoyed an unparalleled significance in power circle . 

Lately the disdain with press or the majority of them with current disposition is palpable. But if one Look it in light of past and current environment than one can take a more objective view . In no way I am trying to justify actions from any side . 

The Majority of media has been quite harsh at modi during his 12 years in Gujarat and and the almost four year stint in delhi , despite a sustained campaign he was able to retain his iron grip over Gujarat and now the nation. Majority of media thinks that they are solely responsible for creating image/opinion  . But lately this power to media has been used and abused to get personal gains from both the parties i.e. journalists and newsmakers. This black mailing  was being carried out initially by few journalist but lately it became very blatant .Journalist became very biased . Since modi was able to sail through against all the media backlash, he does not entertain media and infact with advent of social media , he is making direct conversation with public . He somehow is not going to get perturbed by media stories because he has been able to survive the attack and infact come out stronger. He has harnessed the power of social media to make direct conversation with his audience. If you look at the current landscape ,whatsapp and other social media has bigger and faster reach to spread the message than any of the tradition media’s. Earlier when media was the only source of information for masses ,gave immense power to the pen . With power come responsibility as well ,and when one falters that’s when a change happens . We are also seeing the role of media getting diminished across the globe . The media which was perceived as the watch dog has also somehow lost its credibility by openly showing it’s biases. This biases of media which started as a one of case, has now become rampant and atleast general public has reduced the reliability of media reports . This trust deficit of media has in turn reduced its power and with availability of alternate social media to converse directly with his audience , has been used by modi and other leaders of the world in current time .

I strongly feel that media has to be blamed for this situation. The access to the power circle, be it Governance , Business and entertainment just got rubbed into them and they started playing in their hand to promote or demote the high and mighty by twisting the facts at time . And then came social media which came as new tool in the hands of this high and mighty class. They are currently using it to their advantage to connect to their audience . They are hiring a hiring an army of social media professional to create their image or tarnish their opponent .Thus social media has been used as an alternative to the conventional media because of its speed and reach and another important aspect is the credibility it has garnered between general masses .  

Lately the sanity in conversation has been missing and objective voices are getting lost in the noise . The world of media has become very polarised and it’s difficult to remain objective in the current scenario. This is also in some way a reflection of the behaviour of general public as well. We as a society are becoming less tolerant and are becoming more aggressive.The behaviour of media and political class is also representing the same . This shall also pass as I strongly believe that society has its own self healing mechanism .