Public broadcaster must speak fairly and without any fear: Smriti Irani

New Delhi, October 27: Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani has said that the public broadcaster's duty is to speak fairly and without fear. Delivering the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture, 2017, organised by All India Radio in National Capital yesterday, Irani said that the model structure of broadcasting should focus on democratized viewership.

Elaborating further, she said that while broadcasting sector is based on business propositions and technological upgradation, the Mann ki Baat programme of the Hon’ble Prime Minister was an ideal example of how a technology platform blended PM’s message with citizen understanding and awareness of the issues highlighted by him in each episode.

Talking about the prevailing trends in the News segment of the broadcasting landscape, Irani said that News today had become a “Spectator Sport” as technology had blurred the lines between content and broadcast. As a consequence, while a certain section of the Media Space adhered to codes, ethics and conduct rules, the other segment was driven by rush for TRP’s, eyeballs thereby being influenced by the “Headlines competing with Hashtag”. This was extremely important in the light of the social media explosion taking place in the country which provided a new pathway for information dissemination.

The Minister called upon the public broadcaster to weave stories on the lives of ordinary people which could have an impact both within India and abroad. This would also enable it to weave information with the citizenry of the country.

She mentioned it would be the endeavour of the I&B Ministry to promote the concept of “Design Thinkers” for content generation in the digital space in the light of the growing use of technology by the young generation in areas of internet, mobile content and Animation & Gaming. This would also incorporate the elements of the New India vision envisaged by the Prime Minister by 2022.