Daviti
Mahatma Gandhi started and used newspapers for achieving his goals of complete freedom. The nationalist newspapers marched shoulder to shoulder with Gandhi in the nonviolent struggle for freedom. For 40 years he edited and published weekly newspapers. He reached a large number of the Indians and non-Indians with his newspapers having high circulation at a time when mass media was limited. Gandhi was against publishing advertisements as ‘commercial speech’ as recognised by US courts that go against the editorial content.
He wrote in Young India (January 9, 1930) that “It is a matter of sorrow that in a country like India, where drink is almost universally admitted to be vice, there are respectable newspapers enough to be found to take advertisements for the sale of spirituous liquor whilst their editorial columns favour total prohibition. Gandhi believed that there should be rigid censorship instituted by newspaper proprietors and editors themselves and that only healthy advertisements should be taken.
Gandhi felt that journalism should not be a vocation for earning a living. It should be a means to serve the public, an aid to a larger goal.
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