Like oil mafia, isn’t there a media mafia, asks Sena

Drawing reference from deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s remarks against the media in Nanded, Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamna’, on Monday, claimed that just like oil and sand mafia, there is a media mafia too.

Drawing reference from deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s remarks against the media in Nanded, Sena mouthpiece Saamna, on Monday, claimed that just like oil and sand mafia, there is a media mafia too.

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While referring to journalists at his rally in Nanded on Friday, Pawar had said: “You people need to be disciplined. It’s high time that your industry closed down. You people should be banned from covering any government functions. You journalists should learn to report true stories and publish the good work done by the government.”

Protesting against Pawar’s remarks, a delegation of journalists both from the print and electronic media presented a memorandum to the chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on Monday. They met state governor K Sankaranarayanan too.

The article read: If like Pawar, we would have said, ‘those who cannot understand things when told nicely have to be shown the stick’ the media would have come down heavily on us, and even banned us. But now there is not even a whimper.

Criticising Pawar, the article stated: ‘issuing such an order is against the Indian Penal Code. But, after Pawar gave this statement, the media was pushed out by the police.’

‘Earlier, journalists wrote for democracy and now they write for advertisements’, the editorial alleged. ‘Just like oil mafia, land mafia and sand mafia…. isn’t there a media mafia? Who will control it? When Ashok Chavan asked journalists to avoid planting news, he had to lose his post in Adarsh scam. When chief minister Prithviraj Chavan reiterated the same, the media pointed fingers at his Wadala flat’, it stated.