Media in most of the countries are reeling under lack of freedom. They hanker to get the freedom that Indian media enjoys. But does the Indian media make efforts to translate that freedom into a news of substance for its citizens?
Any news belongs to one of the two categories. One answers the ‘what’ and other answers the ‘why’. The quality of a news channel can be gauged by the proportion of whys among the whats that it helps answer. The purpose of the news should not only be to inform the citizenry of what happened but also dig deeper into the undercurrents and help explain the whys and the trends behind it. Most of the Indian news channel focus on the former and ignore the latter. The only whys they help answering are those of stray murders that they randomly pick up and publicize and earn out of TRP ratings. And if in the process an innocent person is victimized, too bad – for he becomes a victim of the game.
The media has misused its freedom to prevent itself from telecasting genuine news. They make heroes and villains out of stray murders, dish out emotional melodramatic dialogues at the drop of a hat, cameramen practicing zooming on faces – a la ‘K’ serials of Ekta Kapoor (why doesn’t Ekta change her name to ‘K’eta?) follow the reality shows of the sister channels and telecast anything that appeals to the curiosity and amusement of the general laity.
Any news belongs to one of the two categories. One answers the ‘what’ and other answers the ‘why’. The quality of a news channel can be gauged by the proportion of whys among the whats that it helps answer. The purpose of the news should not only be to inform the citizenry of what happened but also dig deeper into the undercurrents and help explain the whys and the trends behind it. Most of the Indian news channel focus on the former and ignore the latter. The only whys they help answering are those of stray murders that they randomly pick up and publicize and earn out of TRP ratings. And if in the process an innocent person is victimized, too bad – for he becomes a victim of the game.
The media has misused its freedom to prevent itself from telecasting genuine news. They make heroes and villains out of stray murders, dish out emotional melodramatic dialogues at the drop of a hat, cameramen practicing zooming on faces – a la ‘K’ serials of Ekta Kapoor (why doesn’t Ekta change her name to ‘K’eta?) follow the reality shows of the sister channels and telecast anything that appeals to the curiosity and amusement of the general laity.
What follows is a sample of prime time ‘Breaking News.’ I leave the floor open for you to comment. Please don’t break your head.
Commissioner's dog captures prime time space
Finally, the dog was found.
What did Rahul Gandhi eat?
Did the Big B sneeze?
2 comments:
Very well written indeed!!! An issue that we have always been talking about amongst ourselves, but which, sadly, has never been addressed more openly--freedom of press!
When the 6-year-old boy Prince fell into a ditch, the media had enough news covering each and every limb he moved inside the ditch to psychiatric opinions on what he must be thinking inside the ditch. For almost 2 or 3 days, all news channels covered him and he and his family became heroes... for what??? For falling into a ditch!! The whole episode gave rise to a much publicized joke. After thsi episode, a man was digging a ditch in his courtyard. He then called his son and told him to play around the ditch. When questioned by his wife as to why he was doing this, he said,"apna bhi bachcha girega, hum bhi TV par aayenge!!"
Very true...Its pity wen such things happen..What a waste wen press mislead common people or say focus on such irrelavent issues. & imp thing is people enjoy this things more than real issues.....
But still people like you & me can definitely try to bring in some change....
So keep writing...
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