shri vinod sharma - Rajya Sabha

does. I quote what he says in his column called "The Press and the Parliament".
"The gallery correspondent -- he says -- is virtually extinct ". This is in the U.K.
"Instead, there are sketch writers whose job is to be funny about Parliament, which
mostly means making mock of MPs. If a newspaper is going to make a fun of
MPs' foibles, it owes it to Parliament to report what actually happens -- which
means, rather more than recording the twice-weekly slapstick of the Prime Minister's
questions. Obviously, most of the reforms needed to restore confidence in
Parliament must come from MPs. But this is one which could come from the Press,
and it is crucial not just to restoring the perception of Parliament but also to reviving
its actual function as the watchdog of the nation. You cannot be a successful
watchdog if no one can hear you bark." So, there also, a decline in this tradition of
factual and extensive reporting has been noted. There are some very fine
parliamentary correspondents. All of you can read them in The Guardian, The
Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, and so on, BBC also. This trend
has been noted in the U.K; we do not want this to come here. I think, it is all
right to be satirical about parliamentary proceedings and we get a plenty of that on
television. But, on the other side, we also need to report seriously. And apparently,
in India, we still have a good part of the old, worthwhile traditions. This is a point
that I wish to make here: keep the lines clear; even if it sounds old fashioned, don't
editorialise in the guise of news; keep the lines between reporting, news analysis
and commentary fairly clear and clean. That is a good recipe, I believe, for serious
journalism, particularly in this area.
Now, a few points quickly on the changing media. The hon. Chairman
referred to a very important thing, the rapid growth of the Media, the terrifically rapid
growth of the Indian Media, particularly the Indian Language Press and also
broadcast television in various Indian languages. This, I think, is important, but I
wish to point out that even in the old days, in the early days of Independence, the