| MUMBAI:
Senior editor M J Akbar today said the entire agitation against paid news was
misplaced since the media was the greatest beneficiary of doles given out by the
government. Speaking
at Ficci Frames 2010 here, he said "the biggest purchaser of news and credibility
is the government."
 Noting
that the so-called control of content by advertisers was the least of concerns
before the media, he said mediapersons were recipients of advantages like housing
and government advertising in newspaper.
Furthermore,
the biggest power in the media was the Board Room in the sense that content was
often decided according to the business interests of the media group. Speaking
on ‘Content is king, but who dictates it – advertising, consumer taste
or editorial policy’, he said the real problems for newspapers were created
by the creators. This was because the biggest asset that present-day journalists
and particularly managements in newspapers had was ego-mania and not news. There
was very little truth in the maxim that the consumer was king and the news was
in keeping with what he wanted to see or read. He
said the editors of newspapers in the fifties or sixties were more like editorial
writers and did not interfere in the news – ‘in fact, they hardly ever
came into the newsroom. But this changed in the seventies and particularly when
the television news came in a large way. But
he said the editor as dictator could not survive for long, but nor could the consumer
become dictator. And, therefore, the Board Room took over. Referring
to the advent of new technologies, he said the Internet could not be blamed for
the downfall of television or newspaper. Every medium has its advantages or disadvantages.
For example, he said a consumer could not carry a TV or personal computer around
all the time the way a newspaper could be carried, and so the print media would
remain supreme. The
Internet began dominating in the west because the newspapers were denied the democratic
right to choose their news, unlike India where the newspaper has always had greater
credibility with the reader. | 
