The Media(o)cracy

The media revolution, in the late nineties, empowered the people of India with information and facilitated for more transparency in the system, or so I thought. The Mumbai carnage was kind of a revelation to me, though I was aware of incompetence of our politicians (there are exceptions, my regards for them), it was the media that disappointed me.

In terms of coverage of whole Mumbai episode, I must pay my respects to all the reporters who dared bullets and grenades for three days in row. There was excellent news coverage by almost every news channel. But good things stop there!!

First of all, I am frustrated about the way the things are presented. Some channels, presented the ‘sansani khabre’ of the attack as though they were presenting some local crime, with the use of presenters from the ‘midnight crime-reporter’ programmes. I see these trends in a lot of local (regional channels) and some hindi news channels (so much for the national language). Frankly, when I see some hindi channels, I lose interest in that language, which I regarded highly all these years.

The English channels are no exception, the news readers change their body-language, . Is all these necessary?, to get some extra viewership, can’t the news presented in a more professional and sobre manner? In these situations, I really feel the need for a sober newsreader just presenting the facts, with out adding ‘emotional flavour’ to the presentation. The miss the legacy Doordarshan News, though less frequent, seems more authentic in the content.

The most pathetic of all is the remix of news with old Hindi songs, playing patriotic songs during the cremation of a departed soldier. I am not sure whether the terrorists had watch Die Hard movie to plan the operation, but I am definitely convinced that, in order to gain some brownie points, the media is playing to popular emotions, a sad but rather discomforting fact.

I regard media as a positive feed back in the whole democratic process. It plays a critical role in making the ‘system’ of politicians and babus answerable to the people. In an ideal democracy, where India comes close, the media must be critical to the system, but (a big BUT) act according to the nation’s interest. I some how find the Indian media degrading in this respect, with all those sting operations, acting as ‘invitation cards’ for the terrorists. It’s ridiculous that some channels showed some footage of their sting operation, just to prove the lack of security in the Indian coast lines, not to mention another sting operation in Hazrat Nizamuddin, with days of terror attack.

The American media, in contrast, barring some satirical programmes, supported ( if not moderately dissented) the wrong doings of the Iraq and afgan wars.

Some food for thought for the media ‘Don’t sensationalize the news, and don’t evoke people’s emotions. Just present the facts, and the people of India are mature enough to understand the situation’.