Need for Self-regulation in the media

Need for Self-regulation in the media

I'm sure that all of us would have had experience coming across stuff that is "not appropriate" for different audience segments or target groups.

Here's one such article that I came across in Times of India, Chennai, on October 12, 2008:

• http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQ0gvMjAwOC8xMC8xMiNBcjA0MDAw&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

I certainly don't consider myself to be either prudish or part of the increasingly common brigade of moral police.

When one sees an article of the above "type" in a magazine that's generally focussed on a certain type of audience - say, magazines focussed on adults, or upwardly mobile "forward-thinking" folks or "yuppie youths", I'll certainly have no qualms about the same.

However, Times of India is a newspaper that's supposed to be meant for the masses. TOI readers include

• Young pre-teen kids
• Senior citizens - including a whole lot of traditional, orthodox senior citizens
• Impressionable teenagers who may not yet know enough to differentiate between "right" and "wrong" (Though others of the same age from a completely different background may be entirely capable of differentiating between "right" and "wrong")
• Youths from "traditional" backgrounds, possibly in their first jobs who may again be "impressionable" because they are "suddenly seeing a lot of money" with a lot of freedom and independence - but yet to know the real implications of the freedom and the responsibilities that go with it! Here again, others of the same age group but from a completely different background will react differently.
• Couples in marriages where one partner is a bit of a "modern, independent person" but the other partner may be from a traditional, orthodox background or, worse still, from a rural, traditional, orthodox, poor family and may be too dependent on the first partner for livelihood. (In such a case, the person concerned may not even know the meaning of terms like informed consent, open marriage, etc.)

Considering the obvious implications of such an article on target audiences such as the ones mentioned above, I guess that the articles should certainly not be published in newspapers like Times of India.

I'm equally sure that folks interested in such "Open Marriages" will find enough of sources both in the print media and in the world wide web to take care of their need for such articles. Both for curiosity value and for actually reading about "like-minded folks"!

Any reactions???

Wonder what Times of India will have to say about this!

Regards,

N

---