Contradictions in Indian media

[icernet-admin at listserv.cddc.vt.edu]

A Delhi-based journalist and a rights activist working as a 
co-coordinator for the International Federation of Journalists, Laxmi 
Murthy, saw the Indian elections as a demonstrable failure of the media 
to foresee the outcome. She called it "a visible disparity between the 
people and the media," which failed to concentrate on important issues 
affecting the one billion Indian populace.
"There was an apparent dislocation between the India that was presented 
by a large part of the media and the India that exists. When you look at 
the exit polls, nobody predicted the results. Nobody predicted that the 
BJP wouldn't go but would be routed," said Ms Murthy. Modalities of 
successfully controlling a huge electorate aside, Ms Murthy lifted the 
shutters on the smoothness of the Indian enfranchisement. Specific to 
the glorification of one family versus the edification of one ideology, 
the elections were an instance of the two major parties' fight for power 
at the cost of overlooking water, health, infant and maternal mortality, 
gender and a host of other issues. "These issues were not part of the 
agenda of either the BJP or the Congress and disappointingly enough, not 
even the media touched upon them," exclaimed a disillusioned Ms Murthy.

Source:
Dawn,  May 26, 2004
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=11508