Newspapers have handed over the baton of setting headlines to the television news, long back. Newspaper only provide details of what is in news. In fact I wonder if newspapers would be sold if they remove classified advertisements and informative articles. News media decide what the people should be thinking about. They set the narrative as long as the social media does not run ahead and make a different headline. But thanks to recent censorship and shadow banning, social media has lost it’s spontaneous charm. Social Media may kill itself by such suicidal biased censorship, even before it has arrived but that is a topic for another day.

What is happening in News Media?

If anybody thinks the news media to be independent reporter of news, they need to check again. The official web site of Government of India called Press Information Bureau is called “Letter Department” in Hindi. Fact is that the Official Gazette of the Government is the predecessor of the newspapers. The freedom of press was a slogan coined in previous century by the parties in opposition who wanted it’s propaganda to be printed to counter the Gazette which was treated as Gospel Truth. (The fact that Gospels too contradict is a different matter) They won not on the ground that they had right to spread propaganda but on the right to free trade.

Nature of the beast called media: