Media should abjure sensationalism: Speaker Somnath’s advise to Media  

NEW DELHI: Voicing his displeasure over the "single-minded" obsession of a section of media with market forces, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Wednesday said editorial policy should not be directed by profit motive or by prejudices of "media moguls and barons".  
 
Chatterjee lamented that the media was not giving same importance to issues of governance it gave earlier and said "mere sensationalism" should end.  
 
"We want our press to be fearless and unbiased...it should abjure mere sensationalism and projections based on its own predilections," he said at an event.  
 
"Editorial policy of a newspaper should not be directed by the prejudices of media moguls and media barons. While profit is indeed a motive in the media world, that in itself should not be the sole criterion when it comes to news and views on the issues before the nation," he said.  
 
Chatterjee noted that newspapers and private channels report stock markets with an "obsessive" detail and not the debates in Parliament on major policy issues like agriculture or commodity inflation.  
 
He had some tough words for the media as he said there exists the spectacle of newspapers and channels spending considerable space on telling people about the latest developments in the life of those in entertainment industry or a sportsperson.