SAMACHAR : An Expression Of India

Every moment a number of events are taking place around us. Out of them, the events which we feel are worth telling to others are News. The News which is not concerned with an individual or a family and is a matter of public interest finds place in newspaper. That is the main difference between news and literature. A news is mainly related to what happened to others whereas literature is primarily a medium of self expression. Objectivity is main characteristic of a news; however the one who is gathering news, reports only on few of the innumerable events.

The gathering of news about all the events is neither possible nor required. The photograph of a person or a scene is its complete reflection. But the picture painted by a painter has only those details which could give a fair idea to the viewer about imagination related to the object and leave the desired impression. Similarly, merely reporting the hard facts is not news. But it should be interesting and be able to satisfy the curiosity of the common people. A reporter, while keeping in mind the public curiosity, cannot work in a detached manner. Not only satisfying the public according to their interest is important but a journalist has built up and guides the interest of the common people in the right direction. This is the emotional and creative aspect of his work.
If he loses this sense of direction then he would always face problems in gathering and distributing news. There is a difference between a correspondent and the one who thrives on here say. The latter might be of interest to public but it is not dialogue. A dialogue has to have all three- “Satya, Shiva and Sundar”. A reporter just not roams around in a world of imagination. He creativity emerges from the real life events around him and he creates accordingly. In this background it is clear that objectivity might be one of the characteristic features of news gathering but it also gets influenced by the personality. Every news should have its own individuality. From this view point, the Indian journalists lag behind.

Most of the newspapers here have a similar structure. Leave apart editorials and a few other items, rest of the things are same in almost all the newspapers. Thus even those doing significant work in public life do not feel that they need to read more newspaper than one. They can do with any of the newspapers. The newspapers in India have failed to develop an individual identity of their own. The reason behind this is that most of the newspapers have a single source-Press Trust of India. It is actually another version of Reuters’ Indian branch Associated Press of India.

Apart from this the information offices of various government offices of various government departments are the source of news for most of the newspapers. As the journalists have a set criteria for most of the things so in case of an event, most of the journalists send similar kind of the journalists send similar kind of reports on same lines. Even if somebody tries something new, the New Editors refuse to publish it. As a result even after independence we have failed to progress in this field. In the field of news, the influence of politicians and various organization and especially the ruling ones is dominant. This goes against the basics of national life. There are areas other than politics but they are ignored.

Only when there is an accident or a crime, attention is paid. There are is hardly any news about literature, culture and religion. There is dominance of foreign news also. If there is a train accident in Argentina, the news regarding this would be there in the newspaper but the programme of Jagatguru Shankaracharya in your city is considered not worth writing about. Though news regarding Pope or about a foreign sect would be published as it comes from Reuters. Akali leader Master Tara Singh’s statements are considered worth publishing because he is active in politics but views of members of Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committed are ignored.

Apart from this viewpoint about the value of the dialogue, the language is also an important issue. Till now we use English as our working language. The agencies are mainly run in English. Even the local language newspapers do by translating newspapers do by translating news items from English.

As a result India does not find an expression. Wherever there is diversity, language becomes more important. Those who think in English fail to catch Indian ethos and even those who do, they fail to express it in English. All the news gathering is done keeping in mind the English readers and the same are provided to the local language newspapers also.

The PTI, in fact provides a second grade service which is relatively cheaper to them. In this service, the original news items are cut short. The editor of such newspapers never becomes anything else but a translator. Several times what happens is that a reporter translates a statement given in an Indian language into English and then the editor again translates it into Hindi.

(Published and Printed by Dr. Mahesh Chandra Sharma for Research and Development Foundation for Integral Humanism).

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