Thursday, June 18, 2009

Sensationalizing the Information

Since last four days all the news channels are behind a breaking news that is of Mr. Shiney Ahuja alleged raped his maid. For next few days they will show all the drama unfolding, creating breaking news every now and then and one fine day will forget and will be behind something else. The journalist on national channels debating the laws related to rape cases, asking experts in the field of law about fate of Mr. Ahuja. This is all beyond imagination. Few days before one idiot from bollywood created a scene on ramp (same person gets Padmashree Award) that became a breaking news and we found people defending the ugly act on national news channels. Lot of things happening around deserve simple condemnation are made complicated, discussed, debated and sometimes supported. I wonder: is this meaning of journalism? Not a single media is unbiased and just restricts itself as a medium of information. Last week I read a news in one of the highest selling local news paper about the owner of rival news paper alleged threatening someone without naming him, but they made it so obvious that everyone understands it and finally passed expert comments about the persons character. While doing that somehow I felt they also forgot the ethics their profession. The same media few months back had declared Arushi’s father, Dr. Rajesh Talwar (if you remember the case of honor killing according to the news channels) a killer even before the investigation was over by police. Same thing is happening in all the cases, the media has become a judge and passing a judgment about all that is happening around.

The media today has not remained only a medium of information but they have become moral police (forgetting their own morality). They do not have independent opinion about the issues but full of bias. Of course this bias is understandable as they all are revenue models and doing it for profit.

We had years of state owned television channel telling us pro government news and information and now we have 100 odd independent news channel (it has become oxymoron now a days) sensationalizing the information to market their channel.

Can Indian ever get the matured and truly independent version of the news? This is the question that remains unanswered.