Is it just me or are news channels getting more and more grisly by the day? On the occasion of Mahashivratri, yesterday, news channels capture a Sadhu being trampled by an elephant. Not only was the whole incident captured live, it was replayed ad nauseam all through yesterday. Its enough to kill whatever little festive joy one feels. In the clip we can see cops standing by and other people too. And obviously there's one more idiot shooting the whole thing on camera.
We are slowly losing whatever little humanity we have in us, for the sake of a sensational news story to sicken us as we sit down for dinner. All for some ratings on TV? Has human life really lost its worth? On a more practical level, is this the image we want to project to the rest of the world? Doesn't the world have enough stereotypes about India already? Do we need more images of sadhus and elephants? And not very favorable images at that.
At a time when India and Indians are making news, the latest mergers with the Tatas and the Sarins at the helm, being recent examples, why dont we devote more screen space to this stuff and related news? How are these mergers important for citizens like u and me? What do we stand to gain or lose? How about some sensible TV for once?
Indian TV today has a news channel dedicated to tarot card readers, and other assorted species of astrologers who predict everything from India's future in business, to the future of Ash and Abhishek post marriage. I wonder who their target audience are and whether they are the source of information or entertainment to anyone. I respect people who believe in astrology or other systems of fortune telling, but please keep that away from full time airing on primetime TV. I am not sure that there are a lot of us that relate to it or understand it. I would like to ask my fellow viewers whether fortune telling on TV really makes sense to them.
I urge NDTV and their tribe to do some much needed introspection, to really evaluate the quality of the programs they air, for the betterment of society in general.
1 comment:
Good Post prof. Yes you are right. But it is not just the Media..it is the countries whole demography that influences the media content. If they don't have enough interesting masala in news their TRP/ Viewers stats goes down and hence even sensible news channels like NDTV not left with much choice. Who in India just watches channel that caters pure business, politics, sports news they call these categories as information and to them the real 'NEWS' means something that grabs attention of masses and ofcoz if they want their each day news to be a real entertainment then only these kinda news gets qualified.
- Prasana
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