Towards a Media Re-Orientation! This morning we have an exciting theme—viz. the media in India. I’ve been anguished by the manner in which they have kept themselves severely focused on news of every kind—even improvised or manufactured news--, and thus remained grossly underutilized, given the enormous clout within their power even to change governments in power! I stand convinced that ,if they had put their hearts into their jobs a bit more all these irretrievable yesteryears, India would have been a far more developed nation; instead of having to remain something like a ‘foetus’ still, she would have stood up as a full-fledged ‘person’! The role of the media today: Abundant ,diverse and accessible right in the front rooms of our houses in every manner, the India media are not arrived as yet but are slowly realizing what they can do to help, probably because the ambiance they hoped for has arrived at last! I’m all admiration for those sprightly journalists to whom the corridors of parliamentary power are as familiar as their own palms and those that ferret out hastily stashed away documents in the ministry files. What bothers me about them, however, is to what extent they are investing in Future India while they attend to their assignments? No doubt you are familiar with the prominent role that our print media and the AV channels are playing today not only to rectify and re-calibrate prevailing paradigms of governance or communication modes of public officials but also to evangelize, guide, educate and update the people while also rectifying the stereotypical thinking or responding habits of the elected persons. Most of them know today in New Delhi that governance doesn’t go by “You also did it” screams or mere name-calling exercises. It goes instead by remaining 24/7 accountable to the Demos or the people at large , and delivering results. Journalism, like India’s Supreme Court, is, thank goodness, asking painful questions at last to those that drafted wrong policies or misused their power with or without good intentions at heart —and are thus helping transform India’s complexion day by day, as Zola’s famous letter “J’Accuse” ensured the freedom to Alfred Dreyfus, and like how the Bjelke Petersen government in Australia collapsed as a result of reporting by Courier Mail and the Four Corners Program. It can’t be denied that the basic truth behind political information also has undergone splintering and brought about inequality, which is getting wider by the minute between the most informed and the least informed. Nay, news of any kind appears first in the guise of FB posts, tweets or blogs today! As I said, our journalists are smart but are we making optimal use of their talent and skill set? No, by far! They are diverted from making sense of policies and instead asked to comment on them during prime time debates.(How much time do you think Mr Arnab Goswami of Times Now channel gets for preparing for a prime time interview or debate? Less than an hour a day! Guess then how much justice he can be expected to do in his slated program!) Information over spill—or overkill—is the reality of today and under this Niagara downpour, information inequality can hide itself in quite cosy comfort at least for a while. For regular consumers of news, anything gets added to the day’s info smorgasbord as you very well know without helping them think along new tracks. Sadly the quality of the information provided by the Indian media—opinionated, nasty and often too shallow for my taste-- leaves much to be desired. Too much distracting opinion is lapping on our mind’s shores daily but are they honest ones? Mostly not! Instead, they are external manifestations of internal fixations obsessions, prejudices, instances of either faith- related brainwashing/ indoctrination, blind refusal to see truth as truth and so on. We do have prime time debates but do they succeed in making a point to mull over during our nights? NO! Admitted that our channels encourage programs on woman power and claiming to empower them too but to what extent do they succeed in bringing about a psychological phase transition in our women folk? Quite rarely! Don’t we have to admit sheepishly that our channels—under immense pressure from their corporate or party managements as they happen to be-- have been cannibalized by the intense need to fill the day and night time somehow with programs, and also maintain a studied myopic vision of their social and community obligations? Who can be held responsible— those that can be easily held steadily in our cross hairs-- for this loss in quality, unless it’s the media managements and their top honchos? Today, on the flip side of this issue, the media are willy-nilly utilizing technology to highlight individual voices in righteous indignation—like Team Anna’s in 2011and 2012—and in disseminating progressive ideas far and wide. TV stations have gone in for a broader channel repertoire, while the humble PC Internet, gone broadband, also has made it possible for us to share our ideas with anyone under the sun in a trice.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 23:49:45 +0000
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