Ram, a ‘thilak’ to Indian journalism, honored with Lokmanya Tilak award

The Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N. Ram was conferred the Lokmanya Tilak national journalism award in Pune on Monday. Instituted by the Kesari Mahratta Trust, the award was given to him on the 129th foundation day of the Kesari newspaper that was started in 1881 by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

Editor-Trustee of Kesari Dr. Deepak Tilak presented the award to Mr. Ram. Maharashtra Minister of State for Home Ramesh Bagwe and Minister for Co-operatives Harshavardhan Patil also attended the function.

Expressed his gratitude for being considered worthy of the award, Mr. Ram said Bal Gangadhar Tilak was the “maker of modern Indian journalism” and referred to his journalistic output as “bold, direct, accessible and independent.”

Mr. Ram narrated how The Hindu had been a forerunner to the era of 24 hour breaking news journalism. When Tilak’s first trial for sedition was on on September 14, 1897 there was a huge gathering of eager enquirers outside The Hindu office on Mount Road in Madras to find out the latest on Tilak’s trial, “The Hindu posted outside its office intimations of Mr. Tilak’s trial being sent to the office by telegram (twenty-four hours),” he said.

Mr. Ram said that his greatgrandfather was a huge admirer of Tilak. One of the houses that Mr. Ram grew up in was named ‘Tilak Bhavan’ by his greatgrandfather.

Mr. Ram speaking on the media scene in India said “India is number one in the world in terms of daily newspaper circulation, with close to 107 million newspaper copies being sold every day.

Radio has not seen the kind of growth that television has, but it is policy constraints that have prevented FM radio from conducting news programmes. As for New Media, the base is low because broadband availability is poor. India has 80 million Internet users against China’s 340 million. Nevertheless, New Media is growing at a brisk pace.” However, he added, “Growth comes at a price and we are paying that price today.”

Quoting Vice-President Hamid Ansari from an intervention he made at a Delhi media workshop, Mr. Ram pointed out that hyper-commercialisation had eroded journalistic values. Though considered the fourth estate of a democracy, the media had assumed a pro-profit persona.

The conflict between the requirements of journalism and the expectations of the shareholders of a news organisation, too, ailed the media.

“In India, we have had a tradition of serious, agenda-building journalism. That was the kind of journalism that Lokmanya Tilak was prosecuted for [by the British],” Mr. Ram said.

Against the backdrop of such a tradition, it was disturbing to see a tendency to dumb down journalism and prioritise entertainment over news, which insulted the intelligence of readers. “One cannot be stiff and old-fashioned and refuse to cover lifestyle and entertainment,” he said. “But there has to be a sense of proportion.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Ram at an interactive session with media students at the Tilak Maharashtra University, called the phenomenon of paid news as the “ugly face of hyper-commercialisation of journalism.”

He criticised television journalism for being “superficial and hysterical” on occasions and added that the standards in print journalism were in general higher than those of television. He said that it was strange that there was no law in India to regulate television news.

Mr. Ram admitted that the print medium suffered from space constraints. The Internet offered a solution, but a business model for stand-alone web journalism had not been developed anywhere in the world, he said.

Last year, the first of this award was given to Vir Sanghvi, Editor of Hindustan Times.

- Asian Tribune -