Karnataka - Bangalore   

Media criticised for overlooking good work

Staff Reporter

Public concerns sidelined: politicians

BANGALORE: The turmoil in the Janata Dal (Secular), a partner in the ruling coalition, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main Opposition party, witnessed last week was the theme of a discussion on Wednesday at a programme organised by the Karnataka Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ).

The former Congress Minister H. Vishwanath lamented that the newspapers and television channels are full of news about politicians quitting and joining various parties, and if there is any welfare or development work going on in the State and if the administration is running on well-oiled wheels, the media ignores it. "The public, and their concerns, the purpose for which people have elected legislators and their expectations from the law-makers have been sidelined or knocked off the pages", he said.

B.N. Bachche Gowda (Janata Dal-Secular), a former Minister, said the political set-up and the media are peddling theories and wrote columns of news speculating on the fate of Siddaramaiah after he was sacked as Deputy Chief Minister. There are reports on protests and rallies and violence unleashed in Tumkur and Kolar by groups of Dalits and backward classes, as if the treatment meted out to Mr. Siddaramaiah is a slight on those communities, and social justice has been thrown out of the window.

"A politician has no caste, he should wear responsibility and accountability like a badge and eschew personality cult," Mr. Bachche Gowda said.

Mukhyamantri Chandru, BJP MLC, said political parties of all hues are full of self-seeking, self-absorbed individuals.

"Kannada Prabha" Editor H.R. Ranganath defended the media saying that in the past decade and a half, the media has become younger.

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