Kritika Sharma
Gandhi’s Views On Journalism & Advertisement
“The true function of journalism is to educate the public mind, not to stock it with wanted and unwanted impressions.” – M.K. Gandhi. Today Gandhi is remembered not only as a freedom fighter but also a brilliant journalist of his time; he believed that the sole purpose of journalism is public service. He was a effective communicator who began his journey from writing the “Indian Opinion” in South Africa in order to ventilate the grievances of Indians and mobilise public opinion in their favour to publishing so many newspapers and journals in India including ‘Young India’ and ‘Navjivan’ to educate people about satyagraha and ‘Harijan’, ‘Harijanbandhu’, ‘Harijansevak’ in different languages like English, Gujarati and Hindi, respectively. The beauty of his work lies in publishing newspapers and journals without any “advertisements”; you read that right in today’s day and age where newspapers have become the slaves of sponsorships and advertisements he criticised and prohibited advertisements and labelled them to be a very westernised concept. According to him they could cause incalculable harm to the society and played a vital role in promoting immorality in the society. He talked specifically about the impending evil of medical advertisements which were deceitful and obscene, many people contracted diseases due to the use of the advertised medications. He told his readers that “newspapers are cheap due to advertisements” was a misconception because it was the readers who paid for the advertisement charges indirectly by buying the harmful goods. He said that the only solution to the problem was rigid censorship of advertisements and refinement of the conscience of newspaper proprietors and editors. The country had to stand for its people and take a step forward in protecting their morals.
Written by : Kritika Sharma (24/087)
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