Media promotes AAP, not Left: CPI-M

The corporate media gives more coverage to Anna Hazare and the AAP compared to the Left because the latter challenges the system, the CPI-M has said.

The corporate media encourages "NGOs or other issue-based movements that speak of moral uprightness without adversely affecting the foundations of the system's exploitative order.

"Hence note the corporate media's enthusiastic support and coverage of, say, Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement, or, the disproportionate media coverage of AAP," said an editorial in People's Democracy, the CPI-M organ.

"As opposed to either, the people's movements and protests organised by the Left parties on the very same issues find scant media coverage, in fact, no media mention.

"This is because unlike the Left parties, the former do not rock the bottom of the system based on exploitation and oppression," the editorial said.

The Left, it said, refuses to accept "TINA" (There Is No Alternative). As far as the CPI-M was concerned, the alternative to TINA was SITA (Socialism Is The Alternative), it said.

According to the journal, the corporate media has reduced the Lok Sabha election battle to an individual choice of a 'leader', "more like reading a matrimonial column".

"The growing disconnect between the corporate media's choice of campaign issues ... and the real issues plaguing the vast mass of Indian people is, indeed, becoming obnoxious."