Almost an endangered species in the morality, even the most refined individuals at times find it difficult to behave correctly when any conflict of interest arises. Few examples (on how to handle it) which comes to my mind immediately are :
1. During our college days, EEE HOD is our controller of examinations (or equivalent to that). So happened his son (our immediate junior) is also the student of the college. I remember him not entering the examination hall whenever his son wrote the exams. May be he is legally bound - but morally that set an good example.
2. P.Chidamabaram, initially when offered the textiles industry ministry apparently declined because his friends and family had lots of interests in the textile business and he felt a conflict of interest may arise.
There are lots of unwritten rules on how the professionals should behave when it comes to handling the conflict of interest - especially the likes of lawyers, auditors, doctors etc. Above all, Media is supposed to behave without any conflict of interest - i.e without any affiliation to any political party, business, religion and more than that - reporting news as news and not "opinions".
Though there are slight deviations here and there, print media more or less behaved/behaving in a professional manner. Advent of electronic media and the profileration of news channels changed this - instead of news we started to hear Rajdeep Sardesai opinion's, Barkha Dutt's opinions. To be fair to them though they went overboard in the news reporting, never any ulterior motives were suspected or alluded (again there were some doubts in the behind-the-camera-scandal-exposures about the intention and the timings).
But it all pales into insignificance when compared to the behaviour of the major cable channels in Tamilnadu. Due to their political affinities, the default behaviour and the reporting of SUN and Jaya TV are only on the expected lines ...nothing extraordinary expected from them ...though in "ideal conditions" if they behaved differently (neutrally) from their political affiliations it would have been great. I guess nobody bothered and not even other media found it worth to "advise" them to toe the unofficial media dharma (of being neutral in reporting). And infact during election time they almost behaved as an official news channel of the respective political parties rather than a general media serving the public.
Not only in politics, even in film reviews and promotions, the political partiality was obvious. Thotti Jaya and Sachien - two reasonably decent movies was blacked out in SUN channels (because the producer Dhanu was from MDMK).
The arrival of Kalignar TV and the increasing interest of the heir apparents (Kalanidhi Maran/Dayanidhi Maran, Udhaiyanidhi Stalin, Dayanidhi Azhagiri all own film production or film distribution uints) of the TN's first political family in the film production and the film distribution business has further aggravated the situation and what we are witnessing is anarchy and sometimes bordering to comical too. Average movies like Kadhalil Vizhundehen, Dindugal Sarathy was promoted to dizzying heights in SUN channel. Varanam Ayuiram is ignored in SUN, while Padikadhavan is ignored in Kalignar. Both Kalignar and SUN ignored "Kadhalna Summa Illa" - a movie produced by Raj TV group (Infact, this movie a remake of the Telugu hit Gamyam is one of the better movies of the pongal release).
When the politics and cinema of a whole state is controlled (or likely to be controlled) by a Single Family ....hmmmm .....let us see what the future beholds for "Tamizhagam" ....
1. During our college days, EEE HOD is our controller of examinations (or equivalent to that). So happened his son (our immediate junior) is also the student of the college. I remember him not entering the examination hall whenever his son wrote the exams. May be he is legally bound - but morally that set an good example.
2. P.Chidamabaram, initially when offered the textiles industry ministry apparently declined because his friends and family had lots of interests in the textile business and he felt a conflict of interest may arise.
There are lots of unwritten rules on how the professionals should behave when it comes to handling the conflict of interest - especially the likes of lawyers, auditors, doctors etc. Above all, Media is supposed to behave without any conflict of interest - i.e without any affiliation to any political party, business, religion and more than that - reporting news as news and not "opinions".
Though there are slight deviations here and there, print media more or less behaved/behaving in a professional manner. Advent of electronic media and the profileration of news channels changed this - instead of news we started to hear Rajdeep Sardesai opinion's, Barkha Dutt's opinions. To be fair to them though they went overboard in the news reporting, never any ulterior motives were suspected or alluded (again there were some doubts in the behind-the-camera-scandal-exposures about the intention and the timings).
But it all pales into insignificance when compared to the behaviour of the major cable channels in Tamilnadu. Due to their political affinities, the default behaviour and the reporting of SUN and Jaya TV are only on the expected lines ...nothing extraordinary expected from them ...though in "ideal conditions" if they behaved differently (neutrally) from their political affiliations it would have been great. I guess nobody bothered and not even other media found it worth to "advise" them to toe the unofficial media dharma (of being neutral in reporting). And infact during election time they almost behaved as an official news channel of the respective political parties rather than a general media serving the public.
Not only in politics, even in film reviews and promotions, the political partiality was obvious. Thotti Jaya and Sachien - two reasonably decent movies was blacked out in SUN channels (because the producer Dhanu was from MDMK).
The arrival of Kalignar TV and the increasing interest of the heir apparents (Kalanidhi Maran/Dayanidhi Maran, Udhaiyanidhi Stalin, Dayanidhi Azhagiri all own film production or film distribution uints) of the TN's first political family in the film production and the film distribution business has further aggravated the situation and what we are witnessing is anarchy and sometimes bordering to comical too. Average movies like Kadhalil Vizhundehen, Dindugal Sarathy was promoted to dizzying heights in SUN channel. Varanam Ayuiram is ignored in SUN, while Padikadhavan is ignored in Kalignar. Both Kalignar and SUN ignored "Kadhalna Summa Illa" - a movie produced by Raj TV group (Infact, this movie a remake of the Telugu hit Gamyam is one of the better movies of the pongal release).
When the politics and cinema of a whole state is controlled (or likely to be controlled) by a Single Family ....hmmmm .....let us see what the future beholds for "Tamizhagam" ....
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