shri vinod sharma - Rajya Sabha

know that paper, he is the editor of that paper and if you put that quote to his face,
you would realise that he is quite capable of saying worse, not just this quote.
These are the people who are your leaders in the profession. I don't think it does
really lie in the mouth of an average journalist today to be questioning the
leadership of various political parties because there is a lot to be achieved and
improved at our front, at our end, because we are actually struggling for a good
leadership at every level within the profession. For instance, I was never trained as
a journlist. I was trained on the job by my seniors. They were my paathshalas of
journalism. And, they were pretty honest! They knew their job. They were the
single-window-clearance for the subject they covered in the newspaper offices that I
have worked in. How many of us can claim that privilege or that exalted position
today Just very few! That tribe is fast diminishing.
Having said that, I would come to why Parliament and its proceedings do not
get adequately reflected in newspapers. That is, perhaps, the subject of this
workshop, 'Parliament and Media'. If Parliament, if Members of Parliament, are the
interface between the people and the Government, then, the media is the interface
between the people and Parliament. We need to inform the people as to whether
the Member of Parliament elected by them is contributing or adding value to debates
that are happening on issues of grave national importance. Parliament, in recent
years, has been enabled to evolve consensus on major national issues and one
reason for that is that it has chosen not to debate those issues in the first instance.
There have been problems of legislation. There have been problems of debate
within Parliament. And, consequently, there have been problems of adequate
scrutiny of Government's work which the Parliament is assigned to do, which is the
duty of Parliament. The press needs to be blamed because the Zero Hour actually
turns Parliament into a big zero. At a recent conference organised by the
newspaper for which I work, Sushma Swaraj and Sitaram Yechury wanted that there