According to Osho, Indian journalists emphasize critiques because there is no truly free press: the state controls radio/TV and indirectly restrains newspapers via newsprint quotas and advertising, while a few oligarchic owners reliant on government licenses set the line. To protect their interests and block sympathy for dissenters, they cherry-pick negative snippets (e.g., his critiques) and suppress balanced or appreciative content, shaping opinion to serve power rather than truth.
Powerful people control the news, so they show only the parts that make critics look bad and hide the rest.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, why do indian journalists only record and publish your critiques of india? I never remember reading about your beautiful discourses on the real india.
The reason is simple: there is no such thing as free Indian journalism. Either the government is keeping a hold on the latest news media, television, radio, directly... and particularly in a country like India, where most of the people cannot read -- but they can see, they can hear. So the government is being really cunning in keeping the radio and television in their own hands to approach eighty percent of India and just fill those minds with their own ideas. Only the newspapers are there. They look free, but they are not. The government has indirectly curtailed their freedom as much as possible. Any newspaper that goes against the directions given to it has its quota for newsprint cut. Newsprint paper is not available on the market, it is in the government's hands. Now, this is a subtle strategy; "You write what we want; otherwise you don't have…
Although many journalists are very touched after meeting with you, the reports that actually appear rarely reflect this and sometimes are even negative. Can a journalist be authentic?
It is difficult for poor journalists to be authentic. They are really touched; I can see their faces, I have seen even tears of joy in their eyes. But when their reports come, they are negative. It has nothing to do with the interview that they have done with me; what they have written they could have written without the interview. They are talking about the gossip going around, about the archbishop preparing for a protest, that people are afraid that if I remain here then I will destroy their old tradition and I will corrupt their youth -- just the old charges which they had against Socrates, corruption of the youth. But in my heart I know this is not the journalist; this is just a poor human being serving under chief editors, owners, and following their dictates. They send him here not to report exactly what I am…
Osho, are all the journalists blind? Can't they see the truth? Why are they continuously spreading lies about you?
A journalist is taught by his profession to always remain at a distance: "Look from the outside." And from the outside you can never know how things are. A pretty young woman was traveling in a train across Texas. A dapper looking man walked up to her and whispered something in her ear, whereupon she gave him a stinging slap in the face. A tall Texan seated across the aisle stood up and asked her, "Is this man molesting you, Ma'am?" "He certainly is," she replied. "He just offered me ten dollars if I would go with him to his sleeping compartment." Without hesitation, the Texan pulled out his pistol and shot the man. "Good God!" cried the woman. "That's no reason to kill him!" "I will kill any man," replied the Texan, "who tries to raise the prices in Texas." If you had looked only from the outside you…
In that way Western journalism has come of age. A... if you are against there is no problem, you write against. But sincerely you are against and sincerely you write against. And if you are for, then sincerely you write for. But this kind of thing that happens in India is very strange. They show one face to me and they show another face in their article. THAT'S CORRECT, SIR. BUT INDIA TODAY ARTICLE YOU KNOW... IT WAS BALANCED, BUT SOME WAY CERTAINLY IT WAS AGAINST (INAUDIBLE) A: Yes. Somehow they will make something sarcastic, something they will leave, something they will add. And it makes immense difference, just a sentence left and the whole meaning changes. But their whole effort is somehow to be in the market a sensation. The whole Indian journalism is living on sensationalism. It has not yet become a category of literature.
Beloved Osho, what is healthy journalism? Can journalism survive on positive news? Please explain your vision on the responsibility of the media.
Nandita, by healthy journalism, I mean journalism which nourishes the whole personality of man -- his body, his mind, his soul -- journalism whose whole concern is to create a better humanity, not just to report what is happening. Journalism should not be just a news medium, it should also be great literature -- then it is healthy. Even yesterday's newspaper should remain of some worth, so that even today it can be read. It should not be so momentary. But if you are only a news medium then naturally, once the day has passed, the news is old. You should make something that never becomes old, and always remains new. That's what great literature is. Dostoevsky's novels, or those of Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, or Turgenev, Rabindranath Tagore ... they will remain significant as long as humanity remains, and as fresh as ever. Something in your journalism should have…