FROWNING MEDIA!

With liberalisation oozing then, and now gushing into our life at every now and then with its fruits bearing the every chance of human prosperity has been the paramount reason behind the thumping of today’s media and it’s personnel basking in the light of collective and utmost freedom. As in England, here also, things have been quite jovial for this industry and environment has been quite conducive for its multiplicative growth. Mr. Narayan Murthy has rightly observed this to be one of the beneficial effect of liberalization whose exponential growth marked the gross progress and socio-economic development, at large for the mass.

Media plays the role of statesmanship. Especially news broadcasted on the electronic media is tended to be lapped up,promptly, by the common man without dredging into much with the objective of finding out or verify it’s status. The scintillating presentation, brilliant oratory and radiant graphics leaves no scope of being cynical for them and hence an entire mist of trust engulfs them. Therefore as we see media with its abysmal potency generated by having direct link with public mind and health… creates opinion, shapes the judicial ability of the billions, govern their actions, motivate {and modulate} their conscience and that in turn,is what, makes up a nation! This unguided and unrestrained imposed authority has recently become the matter of worry and threat to our national security and the heat of which is being felt every now and then by our dignitaries who often are seen to be pleading to these media men for penning down the unbiased truth, which otherwise may have pernicious and widespread adversity (on a local to international scale).
This is nothing but all the blessings of liberalization, that the boom in the news wing has lead to the mushrooming of a number of news channels, local and national, hundreds , thousands and still counting…nudation has been succeeded by competition and as a consequence an urge of getting news at the first hand is what always goading them, failing which they land up with often exaggerated, distorted, to even false news serving as pure public entertainment. This practice has let the malice creep into the system with the fullest exploitation of human mind.the grunt of the public has been misdirected several times. In the endeavour of reaching to the public efficiently (but not effectively), often they have been seen building up stories and adhering unnecessary hype to such single events. Falling prey to the ephemeral power of any government is evident in their overt campaigning for them mostly during the election time.(as I, myself, has found star ananda and chabbis ghanta , the two Bengali news channel clamoring for the two rival parties in Bengal. This is awfully painful and baffling to see how differently they portray a single event with completely contrasting conclusions each time, parting their devout audiences already, much before the party itself send out its manifesto or set out for their own propaganda. ) I wonder how and where from do the hindi news channels excavate those extraordinary, sensitized news from home and gali corners on earth and sometimes beyond earth, as well! Splendid diversity, energy with which they drag 10 lines with all possible tones, tunes, fonts and colours, grimacing faces with every word delivered, enthusiasm for an hour( mannerism with which they assert some points, the ease with which they slight public mockery to their ludicrous behavior) and superhuman magnitude is what they should be credited for.
Obsessed with rating points, news of gargantuan national interest, like the dantewada massive killing of jawans by the Maoist goes subsided or pushed back into the pages by the glamour and charisma of the reigning IPL.
Television has simply run amok. It is unaccountable as there is no audit of the media in the media. Bringing in specialist of their choice and setting the priority of issues and the pertinent events by themselves clearly displays the propensity of the media towards any particular and thus their favorite.
Here is a speech delivered by National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar menon and china’s ambassador Zhang yan at a seminar in new delhi on“India and China: Public Diplomacy, Building Understanding” that states how fearful they both had been as such sensitive issues regarding India and China are often manhandled by our thriving media cooking and always ready to add up a bit more salt to it.After a survey of relations between India and China in the past 60 years, he said: “You might ask what this has to do with public diplomacy by India and China, the topic of your seminar. Everything is my answer, for two principal reasons. One is the shrill and over-excitable commentary on the relationship that has appeared in both countries in the last year or so. The emergence of ‘nativist’ voices, and the loud expression of opinion as fact in the news media which purports to express public opinion could introduce volatility in perceptions. We have all witnessed this phenomenon in India-China relations in the last year or so. When the world is changing so rapidly, and when uncertainty in the international system is at unprecedented levels, neither India nor China can afford misperceptions or distortions of policy caused by a lack of understanding of each other’s compulsions and policy processes.”Zhang Yan pleaded politely for an end to the “war of words”.
It has always been there…the war of words… but recently has been aggravated by the television media. It is of utmost importance to feel the exigency and act in the right direction with proper know-how to burst the bubble of can do anything attitude of the news media and as for the people they need to be more rational and simply should not be guided by any specific news channel or news paper, though I believe, it is quite difficult without government intervening into it (as one can never shuffle through all the papers and survey through all the channels ,before going to work, before taking up his/her decision!).