Ashwini Vaisnava
New Delhi: Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnav, addressing the National Press Day celebrations through video conference, highlighted India’s vibrant and diverse media ecosystem. He discussed the struggle and contribution of the press during the freedom struggle and later during the Emergency and also highlighted the challenges of digital media. Ashwini Vaishnav in her speech said, “Let us remember the contribution of the press in the two freedom struggles from oppressive forces in the last century. First, the long-term struggle for independence from British rule. Secondly, the fight to preserve democracy during the emergency imposed by the Congress government.
Ashwini Vaishnav said, “We must not forget these struggles, because history repeats itself and those who forget it have to face the same challenges again. That is why the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to celebrate June 25 as ‘Constitution Assassination Day.'” Ashwini Vaishnav said India has a vibrant press. It is vocal. There are opinions from all sides about it. Some are very strong. Some are centrist. He said there are more than 35,000 registered newspapers in the country. There are thousands of news channels And the rapidly expanding digital ecosystem is reaching millions of citizens through. mobile devices and the Internet.
Main challenges facing the media and society
Highlighting the major challenges faced by the media and society, Vaishnav said that traditional media is suffering losses financially as news is rapidly shifting from traditional to digital media. He said: “In traditional media, the investment that goes into building a team of journalists, training them, creating editorial processes and methods to verify the authenticity of news and taking responsibility for content is enormous in terms of time and money. “It is very big, but these platforms are becoming irrelevant because the intermediate media have a huge advantage over them in terms of dissemination capacity.” The Union Minister said, “This problem needs a solution. “The hard work that traditional media platforms do to create content must be compensated by fair payment.”
Rapid spread of fake news and rumors.
Vaishnav said the rapid spread of false news and rumors is also a big challenge for the media and society. He said: “This is not only a big threat to the media as it reduces its credibility, but it is also fatal for democracy. Since intermediary platforms do not verify what is published, a large amount of false and misleading information can be found on virtually all platforms. “Even people who are supposed to be conscientious citizens fall into the trap of that misinformation.”
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