Agartala, Dec. 26: Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar called upon working journalists to rise in protest against the gradual erosion of ethics and values in the media and rid the profession of these “evil” influences.

Referring to the “paid news” syndrome that came into focus in the wake of the last Lok Sabha elections as well as the election to the Maharashtra Assembly, Sarkar said, “I would not like to comment on this because a long series of scams have been exposed by the media. But at the same time we can not lose sight of the harsh reality that media moguls are operating jointly with the corporate sector, particular political parties, for generating revenue.” He was speaking at a seminar — “Save ethics, save media” — organised by the Tripura Journalist Union at Agartala Press Club.

Sarkar said in pre-Independence times, middle class and upper middle class people had taken the initiative in bringing out newspapers to contribute to the freedom movement as well as to social reforms. “More than six decades have elapsed since India became independent, but erosion of values is too tangible to ignore. The owners or proprietors would not do anything because they are focussed only on money. The working journalists have to take the initiative to rid media of evil influences,” said the chief minister, adding that growing control of corporate houses and big capitalists over the media is the bane of this country. The chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice (retired) G.N. Ray and council member S.N. Singh also spoke at the seminar.

Ray deplored the media’s involvement in the paid news scandal and said that a sub-committee of the council had carried out intensive investigations into the allegations and come out with the truth in a detailed report.

“We came to know the facts and were preparing to publish it as an annexe to our report, with names and other details. But this could not be done because of objections raised by owner-members of the council who were in a majority. In a democracy one has to respect the majority voice, but we know everything and upon specific requests from the Union council of ministers, specially from the information and broadcasting minister, we have filed the entire investigation report to the ministry,” said Ray.

He said the media enjoys more legal rights and privileges because it contributes to society, and “media cannot be viewed from the perspective of mere capital or ownership”. He indirectly called upon the journalists to take an initiative in launching newspapers and electronics channels on a co-operative basis to save the profession.

Member of the press council and former photo editor of Hindusthan Times, S.N. Singh, also spoke in a similar vein at the seminar.

“In our constitutional set-up anybody or everybody has the right to launch a media house, provided he possesses sufficient capital. But in order to insulate the profession of journalism from pollution of big and ill-begotten money, working journalists must come out into the open; otherwise the profession itself will be destroyed. Apart from this, the system of monopoly rights over media should be abolished,” Ray said, referring to judgments passed by the US Supreme Court.