Hyderabad:Senior media person Arfa Khanum Sherwani said on Friday that the online media was the
saving grace at a time when the mainstream media was fast losing its credibility. Khanam is a senior political analyst with The Wire.
She has earlier worked, among other media outlets, NDTV and Rajya Sabha TV. She conducted a media workshop for students at Maulana Azad National University.Speaking on a range of issues facing the nation Khanum Sherwani said, “Online media is gaining what the mainstream media is losing – its credibility.
Online journalism is free of primetime rush and instead it has created its own primetime. It’s generally believed that young Indian male has largely monopolized the social media and online journalism. The need is to
involve everyone, even housewives,” she said.
On the current state of affairs, she said that politics was posing new challenges every day. “The Indian media saw a boom when foreign direct investment was allowed in India. The rush for getting news is getting everyone now. It is difficult to differentiate between news and propaganda.
The confusion is leading to societal degradation. New day brings in new insecurities in its wake,” she said. On the finer nuances of writing she advised students to cultivate the habit of reading. “The celebrated journalist and writer Khushwant Singh said that you must read 5000 lines to write 500 words.
That’s how you cultivate writing skills. Read, understand and then write’, she said. “The power that be, can be challenged only if you can write well. Marginalized groups can question those in authority only when they align with literacy and start asking questions.
Explorenew ideas. Maulana Azad and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan weren’t popular at their time. They could have resorted to populism. But they didn’t. Instead they went against the flow. Likewise, you should fight for the underprivileged and the deprived,” she said.