Written by: Sakshyam Karna - 26013, Grade X
Posted on: 07 June, 2023
December 12, 2015 about 8 years ago a white VW car with the number plate BA 12. CHA 6100 crashed at five in the morning after going out of control on the way from Maitighar Mandala to Thapathali. Since the area was well lit because of the solar lights the people who were opening their shops for the day were able to witness it. When they went to see who was inside they saw two boys and two girls in the car. It did not take a detective to find out that the crash was caused because the driver had been intoxicated with alcohol and all of the passengers had been partying all night and were returning home. Since all four of them had been hurt they were taken to the Norvic hospital which was nearby and were treated and registered under a fake name. In only a few hours after the accident the police removed the car from the spot and made it look normal as if nothing had happened. Slowly the sun rose and the day started and traffic increased and the roads returned to normal within just a few hours of the accident. Other than the people who saw it no one found out about the accident. Normally if an accident were to happen this would have ended up on the news in no time or at least come on the newspaper the next day but nothing like that happened. A few days later the same car was found being repaired in the garage. And the number plate is found to be registered under the name of an highly reputed media and was being used by the owner’s eldest son. When the people were asked for the explanation of the accident they refused to disclose anything. Since this incident happened with a reputed media company leader no one dared to write about it except for a newspaper daily named Arthik Dainik. And ever since then this newspaper has been slowly dying. Rabi Lamichane had also told about similar incidents including this one, exposing all the big media industries of Nepal. But is actually Nepal's media industry how Lamichhane had described and if not what is the truth behind all of this?
Media is considered to be the fourth pillar of a country. Its job is to bring out true news independent of any external factors and raise their voice against corruption in a country but these same media groups are one of the most corrupt organizations in Nepal and most of the politics also happens here. Every party has their own radios, news daily and news channels who support their respective parties in exchange of funding that they receive from the parties. On the surface it looks as if media companies earn money from advertisements but in reality they earn the most by hiding news, by blackmailing businesspeople to post something against them. If any business group is doing something illegal first of all it has to give money to the leading parties then the media group to make sure that nothing is posted that would reveal their truth. Sometimes the media groups are paid in form of cash and sometimes in the form of shares if not their black deeds will be published. And the business group doesn't have to pay only one media organization but various media organizations. Rabi Lamichane had told all about how this works in the journalist meet and how the twelve brothers of the Nepali media organizations take money to hide crimes from the citizens. According to him, the eldest brother among these 12 corrupt organizations is Nepal’s top media house. The money that is supposed to be distributed to different organizations is first given to him where he divides it into three categories; first class, second class and third class. Here first class being the media groups having high TRP and third class being media groups having low TRP. The first class media group gets the most money and the other two get according to their TRP. And in exchange for taking this money their job is to not publish anything against these business groups. The same thing happened with an insurance company. They got their license without even completing the process and no one wrote about it even though this was a huge act of felony punishable seriously by the law. This shows how corrupt and untruthful our newspaper is. The report by Media Action Nepal also showed that these media groups were the ones with the highest number of fake news on the platforms.
References:
https://www.beemapost.com/2021/12/23470/
https://nagariknews.nagariknetwork.com/feature-article/story/50547.html
https://mysansar.com/2015/12/21227/
https://mysansar.com/2015/12/21257/
https://mediaactionnepal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/misleading-news-in-media.pdf
