A couple of years back, a five-year-old child, yes Prince, fell in a borewell and rose to immediate stardom so much so that the Bollywood brigade lined up to meet him. For an idol-starved country, Prince was the perfect hero, the survivor! After two long days of arduous rescue work, the young boy, sorry hero, was finally rescued from the 60-feet deep borewell. An incident that made him, his family and his entire village famous!
Such incidents will continue to happen in rural India, but no channel would really target the careless authorities for letting these incidents happen, as the more these incidents happen, the more TRP a particular channel gets. Prince was fortunate and survived but there have been many others who haven’t been equally fortunate and have succumbed to this fatal fall. The next time such an incident happens, you can be rest assured that there will be tons of media vans covering the incident whether the rescue teams reach there or not because the media simply loves children falling into borewells.
Most of the television anchors sound more like street hawkers shouting ‘breaking news’, ‘exclusive to our channel’, ‘the very first time on television’ etc as if trying hard to sell low-quality products. Reminds me of what Amitabh Bachchan says in Rann, “TRP ki hod me khabre banti nahi, banaayi jati hai”.
Why has the media taken up the role of a spy agency?? Media is dutifully informed by their “reliable sources” about every small piece of information. Yesterday I was watching Aaj Tak where Abhisar Sharma “exclusively” and proudly showed the revised security plan, following a threat-mail from one of the mushrooming terrorist organisations, for the hockey world cup starting this month in New Delhi. He claimed to be informed by “reliable sources” the exact number of security personnel to be deployed, locations of the CCTV cameras and other such confidential information, thereby reducing the terrorists’ homework. The pertinent questions are: How much should the media know? How much should they reveal?
Ever thought why SRK-Shiv Sena scuffle, or for that matter MNS-North Indians affair, become so intense an issue..?? Thank our news channels! National politics in the last few months has been a soap opera worth Ekta Kapoor‘s skills. Last week I saw Deepak Chourasia on Star News reporting a news item titled “Dalit mahila se balaatkar”. Probably the channel thought that it would not become that big a news if the word “Dalit” was not used.
Well, I’ve a lot of issues with our media; from yellow journalism to sensationalism; from paid news to only-for-TRP-entertainment-news, and many more. I mulled over the possible reasons for these problems and realised that as students, many of these TV reporters/correspondents have been cheated by our education system that has not prepared them for the demands of the real world. And as professionals, they have also been neglected by their recruiters who have never really invested in research. These are problems that need urgent attention and involvement of the government, especially the Information & Broacasting Ministry and the HRD Ministry. I hope Ambika Soni and Kapil Sibal are listening!
In his voluminous report on the demolition of the disputed structure (I don’t intend to get into a debate whether it was a temple or mosque) at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, Justice M. S. Liberhan states, “The importance and primacy of the media in a free society cannot be denied. However, with the enormous privileges that these chroniclers of history enjoy, they must also be alive to the trust that common man reposes in them.”
Unlike the other learned professionals like those of doctors or lawyers, the media in India has no professional standards body capable of effectively dealing with yellow journalism and sensationalism. There is a dire need for a body on the lines of Medical Council of India or the Bar Council of India which has a permanent tribunal which can entertain and decide complaints against individual members of the news/press corps or against TV channels, radio channels, and newspapers as also media conglomerates.
To top it all…
So next time when you watch some news channel, try to analyze what exactly is the real news and what are the channel’s views. Listen-Ponder-Respond! Tell them this is not what we wish to see. Raise your voice. They utilize the privileges of democracy to the fullest; we must do the same! We have to send out a very strong message: we do not want the media to jeopardise security measures, important investigations, etc. We believe that there are investigative agencies and judicial institutions in this country that are capable of doing their job.
