Media is considered to be the fourth pillar of a democracy. It ensures that citizens of a country get to know as to what’s happening in their own country, at the same time it helps in developing opinions amongst the people. It has an enormous reach and can be made to influence people in different ways. Thus, it is extremely important that the media remains independent at the same time applying some kind of a self-regulation.

Recently, one of our own Supreme Court Judge, Katju was seen becoming really critical of the state of Journalism in our country. He cited that only around 10% of our media is what we can call “intellectual” and is involved in covering important social issues, rest is involved in cheap and publicity-gaining Journalism which altogether destroys the purpose of the field. Thus, he wants that the various media houses be brought under the Press Council of India (PCI), so that the content and the coverage can be regulated to make it more meaningful.

The question, which remains is, would regulation hamper the independence of Journalism which is absolutely essential for free and fair reporting. The logical thing to do would be to regulate the same at the same time ensuring that the regulation doesn’t become too interfering. This would entail good for the future of Indian Media and fair and free reporting.

Source for the Image: http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/index_en.htm