Our Media Needs A Radical Change

Not police reforms, not our pathetic food security bill. Neither our nonexistent education system or defense and foreign policies. What that needs some radical change on priority is our Media. The fourth estate of the world’s largest democracy is acting comical for some time and it is only obligatory that proper renovations are done to make it look more mature, genuine and most important stay focused on the real issues on hand than going around like a bunch of school kids and start howling every time their tiffin boxes are attacked.
 

If you don’t consider magazines like ‘Mayapuri’ or ‘Madhur Kahaniya’ are good enough examples of print media then you can safely strikeout India TV, Live TV and to some extent even Aaj Tak from the list when I say Media as a whole. They are a casualty on the image of Indian Media which is surprisingly allowed and endured in our country for years together; and they best be left to run their regular Tendua expedition, extraterrestrial objects or what Sani Maharaj has to say on daily basis. As anyway, clowns should never be taken seriously or brought into context of any serious discussion.

 

Coming back to the point. Once one of my friend disclosed his disbelief on how I can spend hours together only watching News channels on TV; to which I replied – ‘I love whatever that is handmade’. The news that we see on TV now-a-days is more off an effort at fabricating a mole and build a mountain out of it. Most of the time the news item that runs on our channels outlive the issue itself and we end up being fed with enough artificial ingredients which could lead to some impending mental poisoning. Nonissues are endeavored hard to make an issue of it, which are far from addressing the interest of an average Indian and in all sense looks more bizarre than IIPM’s claim of them being one of the best business schools of India.

 

For a starter; while I have all my sympathy for the couple who were forced to part away with their kids by the Norwegian authorities for reasons best known to gray heads in the government; does it anyway a news of that magnitude that every time I switch on to my news channel, I have this drumming on the idiot box? Being one of our citizens the couple’s plight must be aired so that the powers that be at our end must take adequate cognizance and steps be taken to end the plight; but airing the same every half an hour isn’t a bit aggrandizement? This looks even more illogical when our media houses jump the gun and start questioning the intent of a sovereign nation, more so when we ourselves react like a leech sprinkled with salt every time some foreign media does the same against our nation or our intent. If plight of parents who are forced to stay away from their children is a paramount issue, then why not air the plight of the prostitutes whose children were forcefully taken away by the brothel owners so that the mother continues to serve the clients fulltime without wasting a second on her children. Why not air the story that regularly of a poor tribal widow of Bastar who had to part away with her six month old kid as selling the child was her last and only avenue for survival. Why not air the story of our children of the slum who were on regularity forced to the world of crime or flesh trade (depending on the gender)? Why only the children of an NRI take center stage while million others just doesn’t fit into the scheme of things? Is it the economic stature of the aggrieved calls the shot or is it the plain and simple reason of our media going the glamor way like Bollywood? No substance but a lot of showoffs?

 

Since when a rape has become a national news? Even though the act is condemnable with all severity and calls for exemplary punishment for the perpetrators; is it big enough to run it on primetime for a month long period? There are thousand rapes goes around the country and none gets the edge barring selected few. Just because a rape happened to be little high-profile (not sure how rapes can be categorized) and committed in the national capital region, it shouldn’t anyway be more heinous and shameful than the one that happened at the remote corner of Himachal Pradesh. How the rape of a rag picker in Dadar station is anyway different and less important from the so called white Maruti gang rape of Dhaula Kuan? But our media focuses on cases where mileage can be drawn and candlelight marches could be called for. Certainly a Prithivraj Chauhan won’t be needed to stand up before the cameras and explain the rape of Dadar station while Madam Shiela Dixit might just have to for the Dhaula Kuan incident as that is what our media houses want so that they can display their pseudo sympathy for the Northeast people. How can you use the plight of a woman to propagate your false propaganda and some nasty TRP?

 

Manslaughter is a heinous crime and must be dealt with iron fist. But not only the murder of Arushi Talwar, as our beloved media thinks to be. It is since a good two years the homicide committed but our media is yet to get rid of their hangover. The immaculate coverage was so minute that we ended up even seeing the recorded clip of the polygraph tests conducted on few of the many suspects. While it is an open-and-shut case, in all probability of being an honor killing nature, our media goes over the hill in narrating each and every step of what has, could and might or might not have happened that fateful night while criminalizing one individual or the other every second day. That is overdoing, more than the veracity of the dissatisfaction of Ishant Sharma after getting bowled as if he is at par in techniques with a certain Rahul Dravid. Why can’t our media leave the dead at ease and let the law takes its course and concentrate on other murders happening in hundreds across the nation; if covering murder stories at minute level is that all left for our vibrant media to accomplish? If so then why not focus on the murders that is going around under the thick wrap of political vendetta? Why not highlight the murder of that honest forest officer who stood up to defend the wildlife going to the poachers? Why only concentrate on Arushi, just because your studios are in and around NOIDA, you can’t just run around with a camera to feed us with how many people sneeze on daily basis in Delhi. This is again overdoing the duty of nation protection when you leave bigger scavengers aside and cover petty cases as if your lives hang in balance.

 

As if having rustic content is not good enough an irritation, then look at the amount of paid news that goes around in our media. Pioneer in selling themselves and their moral is a certain broadcaster named NDTV. Not only NDTV but every media in India is sold to one political party or the other.

 

While media should remain as neutral as Manmohan Sing is towards Hindu’s plight, we rather see them getting their hands dirty in vindictive politics. Everyday NDTV runs a program or two on the wrong (as minimal as petty corruption in the state government offices) that is going in Gujarat while conveniently forgetting the starving and jobless of Andhra Pradesh. A fart of Rahul Gandhi is showcased as a decisive accomplishment towards the national growth and a game changer moment while successful implementation of Sarva Sikshya Aviyan in Karnataka is no big achievement. ‘Muslims have the first right to natural resources’ is a path breaking statement towards uniting India while Narendra Modi offering prayer in the neighborhood temple is communal.

Debates are organized in dozens to argue if Apex court’s virtual clean chit to Modi is justified or not but no debate on what Rahul Gandhi (front runner in protecting the nation from evils like Modi, Mayawati, Hindus, Saffron terror, Temples, BJP and RSS) was doing when nation was getting looted in the name of CWG. A cracker going off in some corner is the onset of the biggest danger for national security in the form of Saffron terror while in rest, real terrorisms seems to have nothing to do with any religion whatsoever. The examples are in millions which are materialized vehemently to get that non-deserving Padma award while genuine and honest journalism can go for a walk.

 

Why our media always takes up the negative trait? Why there is a close nexus between outright foolishness and our media houses? Why all that matters for the nation like poverty, hunger, low literacy rate, female feticide are never in the radar of our media that often than what petty issues of local importance are? Need some change there in a hurry as media is not there to take sides or get biased but to show news as it is. No manipulation, fabrication or modifications. Shouldn’t it?