A few years back, a leading family associated with the film industry decided to boycott a film award because of some negative comment in a group publication. It’s the same with news media dealing with political personalities. Here’s Dr Bhaskar Das with his response to our question in the February 27 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…
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Q. Since the presence of well-known people is critical for the success of conclaves, do you think news media organising these compromise their editorial integrity by doing so? They can’t be too critical of a political leader for at least a month before an event…
A. Not necessarily. There are two key issues in your question:
1. Should mews media organise conclaves,
2. whether their success has the built-in risks of compromising the editorial integrity as during the pendency of the conclave, the news media has to ensure that they don’t rub the celebrity speakers in the wrong way, thereby affecting their keenness to attend the conclave.
The issues, albeit connected, have to be addressed separately.
Conclaves are organised for strategic reasons like getting closer to various stakeholders and addressable markets, geopoliticaly and psychologically for micro-market penetration and going beyond one to many studio-based shows/ reporting to one-on-one engagement. It also helps generating revenue as branded experiences complement regular FCT business.
I agree that market whispers confirm your alleged possibility. But whispers are whispers without any factual evidence. There might be a tacit reciprocal gesture/ agreement in that direction, but there needn’t be any empirical evidence of it that interferes with editorial policies. Since I am no longer an active practitioner of media/ news channels, my observations may not be contemporary, but if I go by past experience, I have no evidence of the same. Having said that, there might be some coverage that are high on congeniality quotient (as the high profile speakers also show a positive gesture by giving their valuable time (mostly pro bono), but that needn’t interfere with editorial protocols, as per my understanding.