Media as cheerleaders

IN Media Watch Briefs | 10/11/2016
First Arnab Goswami hammered away at the Congress and other critics for two days in a row on Times Now's Newshour for not hailing the demonetisation move. Now Zee has decided to lend its shoulder to ensuring the success of the prime minister's "path breaking" initiative. That adjective is from a statement by the Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra, put out by Zee Entertainment. He says Zee has rolled out a campaign #FightAgainstCorruption which will carried on the network's bouquet of channels.               
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The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.                   

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.                 

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