Freedom of Expression, Dissent & Unionism among Journalists in a Regional Language Television Industry in India

ABSTRACT

Though journalistic labour in India has constantly been evolving, news workers’ issues and concerns remain a relatively less addressed area. As a result, the democratic rights of the news workers in their working atmosphere have also not been addressed. In this context, this study explores the labour condition of television news workers in privately-owned native language news channels in the southern state of Kerala. The in-depth interviews with the working journalists, the former employees, and the office bearers of major journalists’ trade unions help to analyse to what extent the news workers have the freedom to express their dissent inside their organisation. The study found that the profit-oriented restructuring in the technology and labour process has embarked on far-reaching labour issues, which points to holistic problems that undermine the basic tenets of journalism and human rights. The issues such as weakened editorial boards, the inclusion of marketing representatives in the editorial, and the direct intervention by the management are destroying a democratic atmosphere in the newsroom. These scenarios intensify other democratic issues, such as the individual freedom of a journalist to express their dissent in the workspace.

KEYWORDS:

• Journalism
• journalists
• labour conditions
• neoliberalism
• freedom of speech
• unionism

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the working journalists, trade union office bearers and former employees who participated in this study. The first author of this paper is grateful to University Grants Commission (UGC), India, for providing a Junior/ Senior Research Fellowship for carrying out doctoral research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).