Media - Anticipation in 2009

Most of my friends, relatives who are urbanized including myself were pretty demoralized for couple of days after the terror incident happened in Mumbai.But,This wasn’t the case with my retired uncle living in a village who has stopped watching TV ever since he left the city. He was happy and enjoying his days as usual. Now, What made the difference between me and my uncle? It’s my direct involvement with the incident through Media. Has media done a good job? Has it done a bad job? I should've avoided it?


Till second week of December "Enough is Enough","We Shall Remember" were common lines on TV screen which was showing any news channel. Today these words are not shown and we are back in Cricket, Movies and Entertainments. Its good thing as It may bring smile on few peoples face, just to forget the past.

We, Indians are been optimistic ever since Mughals entered our country. We were Optimistic when British were ruling us. Now we are optimistic when terrorists and our own corrupt system making our country a battle ground. We are bunch of opinionated morons. We have some super talented leaders who will come out to news channels and talk about problems but never take a lead to solve it.

We have a media people who are earning money in the name of people’s misery. They don’t even leave graveyard from live telecasting. Why the attack on Taj has made world to turn around? Is it because If you stand on White house you could see only Taj in India? What about people who are dying everyday because of poverty, sexual harassments etc. Where is the protest? Where is the gesture? They are not human being?

If some one is accepting moral responsibility, then he is no lesser than the criminal. Don’t you think they should be sent to jail? Will resignations of politicians solve the problem? Media is not less than Politicians. They know the peoples weakness just like a politicians. Common man's memory! Now everything is back on individual. We need to change. 2 options. Remember and crib all your life. Forget and stay happily.

Let me be a little optimistic and as Oprah Winfrey said, "Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right". Now as a common man who respects and expects peace in his country has some expectations from the Media. Before I go with the points, Let me quote few lines from recent interview happened between Arun Jaitley and Karan Thapar in CNN IBN's Devils Advocate .It was role reversal.

Arun Jaitley: Karan, lets set aside that how and why you have this aggressive posturing, at least the image of a very aggressive interviewer. I come to somewhat a connected issue, yours is still one of the most serious political discussion programmers on Indian television. Are you now, as an experienced political commentator and an anchor, very concerned about the present state of the political television on the news media?

Karan Thapar: If you are suggesting that political discourse and television is becoming shallow, populist rather than popular and therefore it is aiming for catch eyeballs at the cost of rigorous analysis and informed discussion, I would agree with you and I think it is particularly sad. I think the root cause lies in the fact that independent television in India is commercially driven, it survives on advertising and advertising comes for the highest eyeballs which means ratings become important.

Arun Jaitley: Survive to do what? Five-year ago if a television carried a programme which was critical about my party, I will be deeply concerned but today the credibility is going down. There are such a large number of channels these days that an individual channel doesn’t matter, what really matters in news content of a large number of channels is - cinema, cricket, crime, occasionally some crisis and even in those crisis there will some shallow tangential news which will be passed off as a breaking news and therefore the credibility of that news even of that survived or commercially driven channel is not very high.

Karan Thapar: You are talking about the credibility marks of the different sections of the society because of the reasons you mentioned to you and me may have diminished very much but the credibility with the mass audience for the very same reasons may have increased. They like cricket, they like crisis, they like cinema, they like stars and may probably watch a lot of more of a lighter form and shade of news to the type that you and I may prefer. So, the credibility may be low for you and me but it is huge for them.

Arun Jaitley: Are we rushing to instant conclusions because they make more attractive headlines, I think politicians have conventionally went for this kind of populism, but is media also going for it?

Karan Thapar: Or, are we doing it because it is lazy journalism or it can be a combination of both.


- We follow US election but we don’t come out for Voting in our own country. Neither have we educated our people about it. So stop complaining about the system. I hope media will this take this a chance to bring a change in a system.

- Everybody has thoughts, let the thoughts be constructive rather than destructive. We have hundreds of channels to know about movies and cricket. If you are showing celebrity talk for over 30 minutes in News Channel, Why can’t you show Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Addressing politicians for at least 15 minutes? Don’t you think it will help?

- A National News Channel moves from Political Media to Entertainment Media very easily as per the situation.

- If you think a politician is unfit to lead, why don’t the media suggest them the right way?

- I have seen hundreds of debates happened over the year.
1. How many debates will really listen to what audience wanted to say.(They are concerned about the Time)
2. It looks like another program to compete with other channels
3. How many debates resulted in success? Same debates happened over and again on same issue (best example, kids falling into open tube wells)

- Without a doubt media considers politicians as dumb. Media has provoked politicians to come up with controversial statements. Now is this the way of journalism? We need truth but not the gossip or weird controversies.

- I have seen some lousy sting operations rotting whole day in all the channels. But the question here is, what is the motto? What Media wants to prove? Shall we see the follow-up in coming days?( Let me remind you the death of one of the journalists in recent days.).

- Media should stop making a common man to a celebrity. All famous people in Today’s India are good for nothing. They can only give lecture and can’t do anything

- We have some award winning authors who sit in the corner of some park in London or Australia and write about India, Its problems to reach the glory. They haven't done nothing than a giving an option for world to look at India with weird look. It’s not expected from Media to entertain such souls.

- Will Media asks to Ban all the organizations in India. No Fundamentalisms, No human rights activity?

- Will Media urges Leaders to stop talking about policies and find a way to work on it?

- Media should look out for positive things happening in the world. We are already having lots of Problems in India. Its the time Media should stop creating more problems.

-Will each Print or Audio-Visual Media stop looking at others for news and will help common man to live peacefully with basic needs?

- As last quotes from Arun Jaitley and Karan Thapar say, it’s a lazy journalism looking for more attractive headlines. Now Media should also think that,this may effect A Country's relationship with world, with its own people. Let’s not break ourselves into pieces.

Be Responsible and Be Good.