By Shams Ur Rehman Alavi
Mathias Döpfner told Politico staff that those who were uncomfortable with company's core values, should work for other companies.
This was after a staff member asked him to justify his contention that Iran was the aggressor in this war. Döpfner who owns The Telegraph and Politico said that journalists should clearly support Israel.
Clearly, it is about editorial interference and an extreme position. The company's core values don't seem to sync with journalism that demands fair reporting, truth and unbiased coverage.
Most people have their leanings but for media persons, the aim is to do their best to go for truthful and objective reporting that shows all the different sides of the picture.
If a media owner is so blatantly biased, how would readers get to know the other side of the story. In such a scenario, the particular media house will just put up one-sided and biased information.
Unfair. That people like Mathias Döpfner owns the media houses, is indeed a loss for society--as this is embedded journalism, owning media to serve a purpose.
Truth, fact and reality are the casualty. It is bad and hurts the credibility of journalism and journalists. Media can't be dictated to show just one side and behave in a way that it blinds the society and shows just the aspect, the owner wants to show.
Where are the values of integrity, truth and justice? If people start acting in this manner and control media organizations to control minds and use media as a weapon to misinform or give slant to news and views, then it's a huge problem.
If mindset is crooked, then people can insert opinions in reports and give clever twists to reports. This is a shameful practice.
The entire media structure is crumbling because people sense that media owners play this clever game and this makes it difficult for honest journalists who want to practice journalism--basic and correct, factual and honest.
If owners impose certain ideological litmus tests and turn newsrooms into echo chambers, rather than places where people hunt for facts and multiple perspectives, then it is lethal for journalism.
If owner signals that just one side has to be presented or unethically supporting a party, under the guise of journalism, then it erodes the public trust. It's rigging.
The control over journalism is due to media concentration in hands of certain people and if owner is corrupt or biased, then fair reporting is the casualty. Embedded journalism is not a new phenomenon but at such a scale, it is horrific.
