I remember my papa reading 'The Times Of India' and 'Prabhat khabar' daily in the morning after he was done with his shaving. Then in the evening there would be the national news on DD1 at 8'o clock that he rarely missed.
Those were the days of early and mid nineties when media depicted the happenings only..it never dissected it.It just read out the activities that happened during the day but never tried to become prejudiced or biased towards any such event.
Then came ZEE NETWORKS LTD. and private TV channels captured the fancy of indian junta..slowly and steadily the media overpowered every other pillar of democracy and established itself as the most powerful-the fourth pillar of democracy.I vividly remember that the present AAJ TAK(the self proclaimed best hindi news channel in india) was just a 24 minute news bulletin on DD metro that broadcasted at 10:30pm with nalini singh as its host.Then there was parakh hosted by vinod dua betwewen 1992-1996 on DD1...and chunav chunauti on sony entertainment television.Till then everything was fine.
Then came the internet.initially considered a status symbol to have internet at home...it gradually became easily accessible to one and all..media by now had spread its wings to an extent that it could malign anyone's image at its own will..that it could sensationalize news and divert the attention from the core issue.Reporting became a joke..reporters became a bigger joke...media came under heavy criticism but to no effect.Reporters looked like drama artists and their reporting looked more of an emotional scene from a Bollywood movie.
Have u all forgotten nithari children murder case..moninder singh pandher and his servant were initially accused..media degraded them calling darindas and khooni bhediya's...later the servant was found guilty and moninder singh pandher was acquitted and his innocence was restored.but when pandher came out clean..media gave it a 10 min space on TV as against 24 hours they gave when nithari case gained prominence and when they were almost raping him on TV.
The list of cases doesn't end here...recently when dantewada massacre took place in which 65 CRPF jawans lost their life...media was busy reporting the marriage of a failed tennis star and an another failed cricket player and captain of a neighbouring country's cricketing team.Who attended the wedding,who ate what,who didn't come,who came,who left when,who was wearing what...thank GOD they don't report things like 'who went to pee and who din't?' Thousands of important things would be happening around that are worth reporting but media now-a-days is interested in TRP'S and revenues and thus diversifies itself into sensational news and if there is no such news-they create one out of nothing!! While watching news channels you don't feel like u are watching news..you feel you are relishing a daily soap!And to add to that different media houses owe loyalty to different political parties.
The nexus is such that the aam-junta,the mango man,the cattle class is left amidst the glamour of the news far away from the substance within it....news channels are misguided missiles used by politicians to aim each other.We have no hardcore reporters left..intelligent ones like Dr.Prannoy Roy and Vnod Dua are fading....others like burkha dutt are gradually being gulped in by the glamour world of news,no one is interested in watching DD NEWS...as it is a government owned channel and all reporting on important issues are actually a draft by the government itself...I agree the awakening of media has helped too in many ways like bringing justice to jessica lal etc. but then the cons outweigh the pros by huge margin...the media should understand its responsibility and report things,not judge things and then report them 'coz whatever maybe...we have something called the judiciary! is the media listening?????
