Kolkata, Aug 28 (IBNS): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee continued her verbal attacks on media on Tuesday and said it has become 'commercial' in an attempt to hold on to the market.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo said media houses are not touching the 'human side' and only thinking about the commercial angle.
"Newspapers have changed. The attitudes of channels (TV channels) have changed. They have become commercial," Mamata said while addressing a rally here.
"They want to catch the commercial market. The do not want to touch the human side," she said.
Mamata was speaking at the foundation day of the party's students wing Trinamool Chhatra Parishad.
Earlier, Mamata had accused media of fabricating negative stories against the state government.
The CM on Saturday accused the media for taking money and fabricating 'negative' stories against her government and warned that there can be counter action if untrue stories were circulated.
"Is media above scrutiny? I can also spill the beans on media. Do I?" Mamata said, speaking a function of the party's youth wing at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here.
"Some sections of media are taking money to fabricate rape stories and maligning the government. Media is bought out," she said.
She said the media is run by the business houses now and so the media houses perform as per their directions.
Referring to a spate of rape news coverage, Mamata said in real cases the law will punish the guilty but if the media tries to spread false new there can be a counter action too.
Warning the media of action, she said some media are acting to spread false news and they would be held accountable.
"I will enforce crackdown on media if they continue negative reporting," she said.
Earlier on Friday, Mamata said at a function that she does not like to see negative news all the time.
"Since morning if you switch on news channels, all you can see are reports on rape and murder. I don't like to see news on rape, murder and goonism all the time. Try to develop an optimistic mentality, not a pessimistic one. Even if there is negativity, the media should see it in positive sense," she said.
"From morning till night, the police have to handle a thousand chores. In such condition, it's not right to only highlight their mistakes," said Mamata adding that the media should sympathize with the cops.
Defending police inaction in rape cases, Mamata said: "There is a continuous campaign to highlight small mistakes by the police as big ones. The police will take appropriate action if there is injustice."
"But media cooks up (rape) stories. What can be done in such situations? Media is trying to malign the government," she said.
"Most of such (rape) stories are fabricated and aim to dishonour self-respect of women. I request media not to create such issues and disrespect women," she said.
Pertinently, the West Bengal government and the police are under pressure with a number of rape cases being reported from across the state, the most infamous of them being the Park Street rape case where police was found behaving with insensitivity with the victim.