PRINT MEDIA

From Sampath’s Desk:

PRINT MEDIA AND NEWSPAPERS

 

Better than a word of mouth, anything in writing is well understood, appreciated, and responded to. Print media especially newspapers, magazines, journals, etc. have stood the test of times and are still influential, assertive, elaborative, powerful, and reliable windows - standing firm as a rock, rich as the dawn, and tough as leather, going great guns even now despite the advent of other mediums - through which one can look at the outside world.

 

Since its inception, newspapers have been magnetizing the common man. The chief aim of a newspaper is to spread the news. Auxiliary objectives are dissemination of nuggets of subject-specific-information, advertisements on products and services, notifications – government and private – campaigns and advertorials, among others. Over time, other mesmerizing mushrooming media have made inroads like Television, Radio, movies, mobile, cyberspace, etc. as shiny flecks and sequins, but the good old newspaper has survived and surmounted the cut-throat competition retaining its sheen.

 

A newspaper in one hand and a cup of one’s hot favourite beverage to sip on the other is a typical household scene every morning. This was the case with my late father who would sift through the entire newspaper and the practice had firmly gripped me too. No day would be complete for me without reading newspaper along with a cup of my morning hot filter-coffee.

 

From my boyhood, I have been reading newspapers, magazines, journals, periodicals, etc. The library just a kilometer away from my house came in handy for the purpose. Moreover, my father was the manager of the Higginbothams book-stall in Chennai (then Madras) Central Railway Station. I used to visit and read there also. I also had the habit (maybe, a bad one) of stretching my neck to see any interesting news item in a newspaper held and being read by someone in his hands. Once, a middle-aged person, one of my acquaintances, was standing on the road and reading a newspaper. I happened to pass through him. As a cricket-statistics-savvy boy then, I used to look with curiosity at the elaborate score details visible in a page of the newspaper remaining ajar. In the wind, the paper waved - slightly and gently – to and fro - playing hide and seek and eluding my glimpse forcing me to do wiggle-waggle and jiggle-joggle. Seeing me wriggling, he drew out the relevant page and handed it over to me to read it leisurely much to a blend of my embarrassment and delight! 

 

Print media had played an effective role during our freedom struggle despite constraints, fetters, and muzzling of citizens’ voice by the alien rule. How many people would have personally attended the meetings of pre-independence era leaders capable of delivering soul-stirring, thought-provoking, and inspiring speeches? Maybe, some thousands or tens of thousands at the maximum. But when the speech was published in a newspaper, albeit concisely, lakhs of people would have read it and got inspired. Needless to say, scores of scholars, philosophers, scientists, engineers, columnists, reporters, novelists, leaders, and other writers had emerged through the print media. Media being conscience-keeper, promoter of the public good, and disseminator of useful content materials on emerging trends in myriad state-of-the-art arrivals witnessed the world over, its role needs no explanation or over-emphasis. 

 

A progressive, neutral and even-handed newspaper uses its discretion to highlight what it deems as crucial and touchy issues for well-meaning discussion, debate and remedy - without fear or favour, bias or prejudice. In the present era of competition, criticism, and challenges, certain serious issues coming under the media scanner are effectively underscored in newspapers with a churning effect. Consequently, they will have a fair chance of getting redressed. Newspapers also provide the right grist to the public mills generating awareness and debates for hammering out robust solutions even for contentious issues. 

Investigative journalism has, in some criminal cases, helped in unknotting the shrouding mysteries, exposing eluding truths and unraveling lurking realities, thereby uncovering scams and scandals and those involved in them. Media at times plays the role of an ‘amicus curiae’ and also anti-corruption watchdog for rendering proper and full justice. Print media is also a catalyst for social networking, societal engineering, and knowledge revolution.

 

An ideal media would never miss to point out systemic injustices, deficiencies plaguing the mechanism, flawed methodologies, and procedural lacuna wherever they existed. As a social saviour, public causes are espoused by them. As a pillar and beckon-bearer in a democracy, the media has to discharge its social responsibility. Print media continues to have sway over the masses. 

R.SAMPATH