I wrote this because Abhinandan asked me to. “We want Newslaundry to be funded by the public so that it can stay independent”, he said. “Can you write something in this context?”

Of course, I’m too proud and stupid to do what people tell me to do, but the conversation did set me thinking. What is this thing called the media, I wondered, and why does it matter who owns it? Isn’t it just another industry like telecom or transport? Do I lose sleep over who owns my car company? What do I care about media’s freedom struggle, assuming there is such a thing?

We all agree that life was much simpler in ancient times. One of the reasons was that we had no media. We had no way of knowing whether Sunny Leone has implants, or who Arnab is upset with, or whether Azam Khan’s buffalos have been rescued.

Your average citizen would come home after a hard day’s labour in the fields and discuss the weather with his wife. Sometimes, he would gossip a little: “That Chakradhar is sleeping with Shakuntala”, he would say, “I saw them slipping into the mustard fields together”. Then he would go to bed.

News back in those days was whatever was happening in the village. No one knew much about the wider world. It was all word-of-mouth, person-to-person. If you believed the person who gave you “news”, you’d spread it.

Emperor Ashoka changed this. He put up pillars all over the place. These pillars had news on them. They described his conversion to Buddhism. They advised citizens on how to live a better life. Since pillars cost money, sometimes these would mention taxes. This was information, in a standardised form, communicated to thousands of people.

So, we didn’t just discover the zero and the item-number. We also discovered the media. It’s interesting to note that the first ever form of media was completely controlled by the government. The news it conveyed was selective. If there were any scams during Ashoka’s reign, the pillars were not reporting them.

Pillars were a very static medium. It’s hard to publish a pillar weekly, or even monthly. Stones have to be transported. Foundations have to be dug. Masons have to be bullied. Many years later, when Sultan Firoz Shah shifted one of them to Delhi, he used a 42-wheeled cart pulled by 8,400 men. This was news all right, but it wasn’t regular.

Most people agree that the first-ever regular newspaper was the Acta Diurna, or the Daily Acts, published in Rome around 69 BC. It covered the details of court cases and important marriages. Through it, citizens could find out who was going to be executed for what, and which senator’s son was marrying which senator’s daughter. This means that the media has focused on celebrities, sex and violence from the day it was born.

Julius Caesar was the first to add news about the Senate, which ruled the country. Before this, such news was meant for senators only. As a result, common people got to know everything the senators were doing. This may explain why all of them stabbed him. Later, the Emperor Constantine withdrew the senate news and, as a result, no other emperor after him was ever jointly stabbed by members of the senate.

Acta Diurna was carved on stone or brass and displayed in public places, which means portability was still an issue. It was news and it was regular, but it was not a newspaper. The Chinese solved this problem when they launched the Kaiyuan ZaBao, or Bulletin of the Court, published somewhere between 713 and 734 AD by the Tang Dynasty. It was handwritten on silk and distributed on horseback to different provinces. It reported on developments in the government such as who had just been promoted, who was out of favour – and which of the Emperor’s concubines was looking like trouble.

Only government servants were supposed to read it. Clearly, the Chinese made a very early start at keeping things from the public. In fact, both the Roman and the Chinese empires lasted for centuries by ensuring that their citizens knew as little as possible.

Up to this point, all the news that human beings received was created, controlled and spread by the government. Privately-published news was actually a European phenomenon that began in the 17^th century. This means “free speech” really is one of those imported Western values that everyone complains about.

The first privately-published newspaper was Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien. It was published by Johann Carolus in the Free City of Strasbourg, in 1605. It did not last long, perhaps because no one could pronounce its name. Nevertheless, many more followed.

Most were collections of government information with classified ads and “lost and found” columns. And marriages. Throughout human history, we’ve been deeply interested in marriages.

The Spectator changed the game. It was published in England in 1711. The Spectator reported news through the eyes of one Mr Spectator and the members of the Spectator club. They were distinct characters, with individual personalities. There were high class people like Madhu Trehan, and suspicious characters like Abhinandan Sekhri.

Readers saw news through their eyes, and heard their opinions. At its height, The Spectator had a circulation of 60,000, which was 10 per cent of London’s population. It was the first time in history that news and opinions came to the public from someone who was not the government.

It was in America that the media became what it is today. This is one more thing we can blame them for. One of the pioneers was Benjamin Franklin, who conducted experiments with democracy and lightning. He also experimented with newspapers. He felt that a newspaper should be run as a profit-making business, with a duty to morally uplift the people. He set up the world’s first newspaper chain, with printing presses across the country. His experiment was successful, although he himself was somewhat distracted by the need to throw the British out of America.

In less than a hundred years, by the early 19th century, there were over 40 newspapers across the length and breadth of the country. The government no longer controlled the news. Far away, from across the ocean, the Chinese watched in horror.

They were strange, those early newspapers, with satirical pieces and fictitious narrators. They were more like Unreal Times than The Times of India. They were written with style and wit. They were almost literature and meant for the high-class gentleman. They helped form opinions. They influenced thought. They played a big role in the American freedom struggle. They created a sense of America as a nation. It was a nation of rich white people who wore wigs, but it was a nation, nevertheless.

Over time, the media business in America evolved. Printing became cheaper and faster. Poorer people also learnt how to read. Three types of newspapers emerged. There were penny papers which catered to mass audiences. There were political papers which supported one party or the other. There were neutral papers that focused on reporting news without any bias. From Horace Greeley to Randolph Hearst, generations of editors helped shape these trends. Even today, the editor of The New York Times is highly respected.

How did we do it in India? It’s been strikingly similar to America. The first Indian paper was Hickey’s Gazette, published in Calcutta in 1710. Hickey was a scoundrel. He spread gossip and attacked the character of ladies. He had a talent for giving nicknames. He was a drunkard and a womaniser, establishing a grand tradition in Indian journalism that goes on to this day.

You can imagine him coming up with Twitter hashtags like #preitynessmess and #whokilledsunanda. He was jailed repeatedly and died in debt. His spirit is alive and well.

The first few newspapers in India were published by Englishmen for Englishmen. Our only job was to fetch them. But this changed. Soon, like in America, newspapers became part of the freedom struggle. Papers like Amrita Bazaar Patrika and The Hindoo Patriot inspired upper class Indian gentlemen. They made them want to become first class Indians instead of second class Britishers. Meanwhile, The Hindu under Subramania Iyer established a reputation for unbiased, trustworthy journalism. So did Bombay Samachar, which has been running since 1822.

Over the years, across the world, two kinds of media have developed. One is the Money Media, which will do anything to get more readers and more ad money. The other is the Moral Media, which is driven by some principles. They attract audiences through these principles, and charge advertisers for access.

Sometimes the principle is support for a political party. Sometimes it’s support for the truth. But in both cases — and this is crucial – money is not the only reason for their existence.

Money always wins, though, and today, most media is Money Media. India is not unique in this respect. In America, six corporations own 90 per cent of all media. Even more disturbingly, one of them is Disney. Thirty years ago there were 50. Most of them want to give the public what they want, which is why American news is now mostly about boob jobs.

Rupert Murdoch is the exception. His political views are slightly to the right of Hitler. Which is why Fox News runs stories like “Is Obama responsible for the rise in boob jobs?”

The key difference in India is Samir Jain, Vice Chairman of The Times Group. There’s no doubt that he’s a genius. Whether good or evil, only time will tell. He sees a newspaper as no different from a potato chip. Anything goes, so long as it makes money.

He’s not unique. In our business culture, many businessmen believe making money is their dharam. It’s their religious duty to do so, by any and every means possible. Of course, my religious knowledge is limited. But if there’s any ethical code that constrains them, I haven’t heard about it. They must be relying on their consciences.

The amount of money that The Times Group makes is hard to ignore. As a result, almost all media in India has become Money Media. This is not very different from America. The difference lies in ownership. In America, the six companies who own most of the media are media companies. They are bound by certain ethics that were developed over years, like full disclosure. If an American or European paper is commenting on a company that owns it, it always reveals this. Whereas Faking News can carry a piece with pro-Reliance humour without ever revealing that Reliance owns them.

That’s another way in which Indian media is different. Many of the business houses that own Indian media are not media houses. The Ambanis own three out of four of India’s business channels. For more details, you can check out Anand Ranganathan on this site. He did a fabulous job. I don’t think anyone else would have run those stories. These business houses have no interest in the traditions or the ethics of media. Most of them are run by traditional businessmen. Their selective interpretation of spirituality means they are bound by no ethical code. Their dealings with editors are guided by the malik-naukar principle. Their only interests are their own interests. What kind of news can we expect from them? What kind of news will we never get to know?

That’s why it’s probably a good idea if we had some media that is owned by ordinary people, with little bits of money from everyone. Because, as we just saw, media has always been about more than just money. It can shape us and define us. It can make us who we are. It can help us to tell the good from the bad. It’s for all of us.

If the big people have forgotten that, and it looks like they have, maybe it’s time for the little people to remind them.