I was born in an era when there used to be only one news channel – DD news. The reach of the
channel was limited and hence, they could manage to communicate only a small
percentage of what was happening in the world. But, those were true and
simple facts.
As we progressed
into the advanced age of technology with wider reach and 24/7 news channels, we
expected to be up-to-date about almost every significant thing that was
happening around us. And for a small period of time that happened too.
But as the competition
grew and one after another, channels were added to the list, facts started
getting distorted, to the extent that in present day, same story will be aired
on all channels, but each with a different
spiced up version of the original one.
Only last month, our news channels were majorly occupied with covering a “religious guru” and her antics. It wasn’t something unseen or something that would affect the world or anybody in general, but it entertained the viewers, gave them a topic to talk about and joke on whatsapp etc., thereby boosting up TRPs for the channels. And this is one of the many examples where insignificant things have been given preference over the really important ones.
Not only this,
our so-called paparazzi find it uber cool to hound and stalk celebrities and
report their minute by minute report to the world. I am sure they think they
are doing a great favour to fans by bringing them close to their favorites.
But, I beg to differ on this. Personally, I hate early morning flights and if
someone is shoving the camera in my face at that time, when I am already not in
best of my spirits, I would honestly be irritated. Obviously that’s the most
obvious reaction. But this is termed as high-handed attitude of a celebrity by
our media. So my question to them, how about we turn the tables one day, be on
their back 24/7 and then dissect their activity and looks. Will that be
entertaining?
This does not
end here, there are something else which are manipulated on a large basis and
those are emotional values. Lately, a very heart-wrenching picture of a drowned
little boy did rounds on all social networking sites for days, claiming that it
was to awaken the world to the plight of refugees in a war-stricken country. But was that really the objective? Why nobody
divulged further into the matter to seek exactly what is going on and what can
be corrective measures? Instead, what was reported was the interview of a grief
stricken father on what are his future plans. Really? Did we bury our humanity
somewhere? I guess this was the thing, which outraged people of an earthquake
stricken Nepal and forced them to ask Indian media to leave their land.
We are a
developing nation, and we have a long way to go. There are more pressing and
important matters which should be focused on. For instance, why no one bothers
to report about the never-improving infrastructure of our country despite
thousands of crores being allocated for same every year in budget? Why no one
monitors the reason that the development of a metro or a flyover takes longer
than stipulated time? Why do we need shows like Satyamev Jayate to make people
aware about the road accidents, network of beggars or plight of woman in the
country?
It’s really sad,
that not a single channel decides to break the monotony and do something which
will be real “journalism”. I don’t read newspapers anymore except for finance
pages, nor do I follow news, coz for baked and cooked stories, I have plethora
of fictional dramas to watch. I don’t need one in reality.
And these are my
thoughts and beliefs. Nobody is bound to agree or disagree.
