The Massss Media

The Massss Media

Tell me, why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognise our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?
~ Abdul Kalam

Journalism is literature in a hurry ~ Matthew Arnold

Frustrated at the media, don’t ask me why (we all need some reasons to get frustrated and here I need a reason to write). I spent this evening at my favorite local pub with the ghost of avaiyar (a famous Tamil poet from my home town, lived 1^st century B.C), an identity crisis and my favorite Belgian beer. We were equally familiar with the idea of mass media, mass-generation of rubbish stuff which can’t be resisted by captive citizens.

Obviously we all agree that there is much information which are accurate and thought provoking. But equally there is tons of flashy-unwanted-sensational-biased stuff with less or no accuracy. We are forced to digest news which is not in our interest, say something about Dirty vidya, plump aishwarya, ditched deepika, kitten with a whip poonam or awkwardly ridiculous celebrations (with or without political gain) for winning “something” which is a mother of nothing. The receptors of tolerance and silence are getting overexpressed in an alarmingly high rate in our system, rather than causing aversion these news feeds are fast becoming a necessary daily dose.

When it comes to inaccuracy in news publishing, this is how it gets twisted as mistaken homonym “peas loving nation instead a peace loving nation”. And retwisted like this, For example, a well-known judge X sates that “smokers in public should be punished”.

Media next day:

Media 1- smokers in public should be severely punished- Judge X;

Media 2- Smokers deserve punishment in public – Judge X;

Media 3- Judge X supports Saudi-style of punishments for smokers.

After few weeks, it will be a headline that Judge X was charged for biased and derogatory statements.

What we were concerned is that these superman or superwomen like creatures are/were proudly in the limelight supported by our masss media. Our infamous leaders going to government sponsored long vacations (or we can incorrectly call it as “lodged into jail as punishment”) and quite predictively coming back home as famous heroes. It’s a holy fun for an extent, but if something of this magnitude dominates everyday and everywhere then something isn’t seriously quite right.

On the other hand when it comes to movies, though there are few awe inspiring movies but mostly you got see a trend, a defined recipe of repetition. Here is the template.

The hero will be a symbol of extremity, either an expert or a fool. There will be a villain, mostly projected as stupid-powerful-disloyal-misbehaving beast. The hero will have a close group of loyal and incapable friends/family. The hero must fall in love with an arrogant or beautiful girl (usually both). Two or more in the close group will fall in love….likewise two or more will die. If the director wants sensation, he can always kill a girl/lady. The villain and the hero will live till end to do battle again in the sequel, and obviously hero triumphs.

I’m not alone here lamenting about media, I found few (in fact many, but a couple of examples are enough to support my togetherness) big guns as well doing the same. A former Supreme Court judge M. Katju, recently fired at the media “to educate themselves more”. Economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen also joined the list of critics, you should able to find his articles elsewhere on the web.

Cursing at my own captiveness and inability, I decided to sink myself (best or not the best thing to sink yourself when in uncomfortableness?) deep into “De Nederlandse Bierfles” and ordered one more drink, as blink synchronicity everyone too ordered a drink to make it a perfect drink-synchronicity.

≈