Media-
the cancer.
I would like to get into the cancers afflicting the
media without getting into the specifics but expose the cancers.
Let me make it very clear at the outset that I do
not have any affinity for any political outfit nor am I representing any big non-
governmental corporate house.
The malady is multi pronged not only confined to
paid media and media bias due to their political and corporate nexus etc which
are all very well known and much talked about by everyone, including those
media houses who do not have the luxury of being in such wealthy company of corrupt politicians
and corporate giants who fund them.
There is another sweeping generalization which goes like
this, ‘when the whole society is corrupt, valueless, oral less and unethical in
all its dealing why should media alone be expected to subjected to scrutiny
involving such standards not in tune with the general trend of ethics less
society and valueless life styles’.
But then, it
is purely because the media dons the role of an universal judge, sometimes arrogates
itself to sit on judgment on everything and everyone; proceeds to act as self
appointed umpires to decide on matters of social concern, national security,
sensitive issues etc without the least concern about the repercussions acting
without an iota of responsibility; delves into unsolicited catchy labeling /sloganeering
devoid of truth and facts just to pander
to some ideological cages within which it is caught thinking such ideological identification keeps them on
a high pedestal of great social elites who are concerned about the welfare of either human race, environment, actual victims
or media created victims etc.
Most importantly in doing all these it [the media
intentionally and with an unpardonable sic herdish instinct] swings like a
pendulum between selective amnesia and collective indifference, like for
example reporting ‘members belonging to a particular community’ [ Is it out of
diplomacy, fear , pressure or money or
all these?];it is reliably [reliable according to whom?] learnt from sources [
what sources or which source?]; inclusive growth [what is meant by it? Any growth
measure when taken up has to be inclusive, unless it is Viagra] secular [to
mean anything against Hindus as no media house has the courage to report the
plight of Kashmiri pundits [it is on par with what has been done to Kurdish people
by Saddam Hussein, i.e. people living in a particular place for generations
together have been made into refugees in their own country by their own countrymen
and media is in stoic silence for the past so many years. Minority [means or at
least refers either covertly or overtly only to Muslims whereas those real minorities
less than 10% of the population religion wise Buddhists, Jains, Christians,
Sikhs, Parsies etc are conveniently forgotten, media is a major culprit in all
these, in fact more than the political or ideological outfits that prefer or
prescribe to these labels]; what about Anglo-Indians and poor Brahmins? They
both neither get any benefit in terms of caste as well as religious status. Why
is the media more keen on 17th century classification and use them
as tools to divide or create a fear psychosis leading to imagined or imaginary
defensive aggression; in some cases the media is the cause of such violence. Why
does not the media admonish all or any form of violence/terror attacks by any
outfit be it Maoist, ISI etc against or on innocent and unprotected citizens who
go to malls to shop during Dewali or people who check in at star hotels. Why the
media grabs only certain clashes and highlights them while blissfully ignore
the plight of victims be it the pandits driven out of their homes, the Tamils
driven out from Srilanka, the tribal
children forced to take to arms by the Naxals, or women being burnt alive and
consigning that along with their dead bodies as mere accident. This can happen
to media persons too; it did happen in Tamil Nadu some people working in a
particular media house were burnt alive and no other media across the country
even bothered to highlight it.
The outfits in whose favor the media is playing the game
of propaganda and brainwashing opinion
molding techniques may /can/ will turn their violence against the very media if
things are not going in their favor, how their ire manifests may vary from a mere verbal tirade to killing of journalists. Nothing can be ruled
out when the media has sold its integrity and honesty totally for some
consideration.
I cannot resist referring to a small example here. While
the media created AAP and its now popular, sorry notorious, AK49 whose past
credentials are at best a mystery, myth, at worst dubious and in reality cunning
manipulation of ANNA HAZARE movement to opportunistically hoist himself, the very
same media rarely reports the simplicity and the good work that a more sincere
and sane IITian has been doing sincerely as a CM of Goa. He does not require
any media certificates to get elected next time as was the case with MODI, in
whose case the entire media was doing only the post mortem of Godra riots
without even once mentioning, leave alone highlighting
the truth as to what triggered the riots.
Media persons, you all please mature and realize the
fact that the present generation is interested in availability of water,
electricity, internet, better returns for their agricultural yield, more
factories and industries, improved infrastructure, unadulterated food, better
educational facilities, more job opportunities, peaceful social life, overall
economic development etc and not debating and discussing the relative merits or
demerits any political, religious, economic ideologies or identities. These
could be favorite past times for some TV anchors who never get time to see real
life outside their air-conditioned chambers.
I think all political parties, especially the two
major parties BJP and Congress must realize that they need to do away with all
their old vote bank politics and make a paradigm shift in tune with the times,
that is perhaps why MODI’s proven track record in economic development is
making him loom larger than the party not his looks, not his family background,
not his caste, not his religion, not any of his pet ideological projection etc.
It is this lack of governance that has shown the
door to B.S. Yeddiyurappa or Gehlot.
Even an iota of
expose of the suppressed facts, biased reporting etc by the media will
pulverize the giant false pillars of
the media.
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