Every time I switch on the TV to watch news, I feel I’m forced to watch some biased news! One channel talks only about the things that one party is doing. It directly thrashes other political parties. One channel talks continuously about one region and vice versa. So I thought of researching into the topic and see who are behind this thing and why I am not getting good unbiased news.
At present there are around 26 Telugu news channels in Andhra Pradesh, which is the highest any state has in India. You will be surprised to know that there are only 10 national English news channels in India. The number says it all. Most of the news channels are owned by politicians. They take the advantage of owning a news channel and show news that favours their political point of view, which is usually one sided and criticize other political parties.
Biased news channels
Few years back, there was no news channel that showed news all day long. Only Doordarshan used to telecast news in three sessions that is in the morning, afternoon and in the evening. Now, we get to hear news 24/7. It’s good that news is available 24/7, but the news that is shown is mostly biased.
There are news channels which are biased to specific political party as politicians majorly own them or have substantial shareholding in those news channels. These politicians use news channels as a promotional tool to shape the opinions of people and use it for their own benefit.
One can easily differentiate biased and unbiased news because the same news is shown in different ways – positively and negatively. If you really see there are very few Telugu news channels that are unbiased and they show what truth is and they are biased towards people rather than politicians.
Shareholding of political parties
Let’s take a look at the background of these news channels and see if they have relationship with any politician. Taking few examples, Telugu news channel Sakshi TV is owned by Jagan Mohan Reddy, Studio N is owned by Narne Srinivasa Rao, a businessman related to N. Chandrababu Naidu, T-news is owned by TRS, 10 TV is a CPM backed channel, whereas Congress has three news channels – I-News, Zee 24 Ghantalu and V6.
While the cost of owning a news channel is somewhat substantial, most major politicians are easily able to arrange the initial and running costs of these news channels. The channels are launched by politicians to get favourable coverage to build up a public image in good times and to counter the arguments of political opponents during controversial times.
If each politician owns a news channel where will we get to hear the real news, the news channels are biased in telecasting their own political views/news. For them being in news is more important than doing the right thing that is important for the people.
The threads that link politics and the news channels often get entangled which results in distorted coverage. The Telugu news channels are focused on expanding their political advantage and achieving their aspiration. In this process, we are getting distorted coverage.
Biased regional news
The hot topic in Telugu news channels is bifurcation of AP. Before bifurcation these channels showed only about the Telangana agitation. After the bifurcation the focus shifted towards Seemandhra agitations.
If you really see majority of Telugu news channels are owned by Seemandhra politicians and businessmen. Telangana politicians and businessmen didn’t had any news channels. As they didn’t want to be behind in this race, they decided to launch their own news channels. The whole scenario has become like tit-for-tat.
The truth is that almost all news channels in AP do not have integrity and they show only biased news, not news that is trustworthy.
Some people have become smart and keep changing channels to find a news channel that is not connected with the situation to get correct picture.
Let’s say you need a view point on a certain topic related to a certain businessman connected with a political party ‘A’. News channels connected with party ‘A’ will either project the view point of this businessman or not show that news item. The channels of other political party ‘B’ will project that news in most negative manner. If there is a news channel unconnected to this businessman, there is some chance of getting a correct picture.