By IANS,
New Delhi : Criticizing the growing deterioration in news content of the electronic media, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Sumitra Mahajan said in the Lok Sabha Thursday there was need to curb the mushrooming of news channels as mafia were using ill-gotten money to finance them.
“The print and electronic media are considered the fourth pillar of democracy but now some mafia are putting their black money in them,” said Mahajan. She criticized the falling standards of news reportage and said anything and everything was being passed off as “breaking news”.
“The definition of breaking news has changed. Now news channels show programmes on jaadu-tona (black magic) and bhoot-pret (ghosts and spirits),” she said.
Mahajan, who is MP from Indore, said there were other issues of concern in the electronic media like telecast of fashion shows and sports personalities walking the fashion ramps. “Now our players walk the ramps. And the so-called fashion shows are about clothes but the models hardly wear anything,” she said.
Referring to the spate of wardrobe malfunctions in recent fashion shows, Mahajan said it was surprising how the clothes of these models slipped. “And then our kids watch these episodes the whole day,” she said, adding, “I am concerned as I am a mother and a grandmother too.”
BJP has been strict on the dress code in schools and television channels. When the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power, its information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj had ordered the lady newsreaders on Doordarshan, the government-owned news channel, to adhere to a particular dress code.
When an MP from the treasury benches said that Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who is from the BJP, had organised a fashion show, Mahajan said: “I am not against fashion shows. What Raje did was to showcase the rich culture of her state.”
She asked Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi to look into these issues and take appropriate action.