From the fourth estate to becoming fourth rate !

Last year after the 26/11 attack, I had written a post on the 5 vultures which hound our nation today including politicians, bureaucrats, unfriendly neighbouring countries, media and the finally us the common public who have become apathetic to its surrounding environment.

The year 2009 has particularly one of the above mentioned to falling further from grace that is the media. The Indian media grappling with the new needs of a 24X7 news channel coverage has come to its wits end. The commercialization is so rampant that, they are forced to run feeds of reality shows at non prime time, run interviews of Saif and Kareena on prime time television and also talk about Ashwariya Rai bumping into her ex Salman and Vivek in great gusto.

Ridiculous programming

Apart from this, wild insane programming which talks about the end of the world by the CERN “Maha yantra” (India TV is convinced once the CERN Particle Accelerator is operational, KABOOM end of the world) and other ridiculous stories like Rakhi Sawant par Janta ki mukadama. If you ask the channel people they will say, we give what the people want and that’s what we are giving it to them. Especially the Hindi news channels are more guilty in selling out to cater to the lowest common denominator, but even the English media cannot be claim to be covering themselves in glory. The distinction between a general entertainment channel and a news channel is very little these days.

Anniversary Obsessions

The English media is now obsessed with date and anniversaries; it is an easy method of lazy news coverage, a 26/11, 7/11, 9/11, pull out archive footage, add some dramatic music and ta da … 3 hours of prime time coverage is ready. There is no real introspection of the event, just call politicians names, reopen old scars by asking a husband how he feels about his lost wife and recreate the fearful gloomy atmosphere for all. The coverage is getting elitist; Taj and Trident deaths get more coverage than the deaths at Cama Hospital or CST station. Where were the candle light processions when the July train blasts occurred? Surely some terrorist attacks are not more equal than others.

Crime shows

Crime is another favorite exploited genre which is milked for prime-time viewing; today we are talking about a police commissioner molesting a young tennis player, while the Arushi murder case was dissected to the maximum making the private lives of Dr Talwar n his wife a public mockery. I still remember the remorseless headline of television channel; “Daddy killed Arushi” which they retracted after some hours. This is the kind of irresponsible sensational media coverage we are subjected to these days. Crime coverage is voyeuristic, typical police bashing and case is only followed as long as the public memory lasts and then it becomes another footnote in the television history.

All the same

The argument which you shall get from the news channels is that, if you don’t like then don’t watch, you can surf ahead and watch something else, but then if the catch is its 10.30 all channels air sports content, on a weekend it will be Auto and Gadget shows at the same slot, so you hardly get an option to watch something else anyway. The airing of same content ensures the viewer has no choice but to either suffer through the same programming or switch off the TV.

Inadvertently promoting fringe violent groups

The fringe groups like Sri Ram Sena led by Promod Muthalik and MNS get undue coverage in the media which in fact incites them to take to violence as a weapon which gives them a larger audience using the media as a platform. These anti-social elements should be condemned for the law breaking not eulogized by getting “exclusive interviews”.

Abdication of Neutrality

Another recent blot on the media emerged in the current general elections, where the sections of print media were accused of selling the interview space to candidates for bribes. Apart from this we also see incidents of biased reporting, look at any US media reports on the Copenhagen climate summit, they paint India and China as villains, while the Indian media sees it a moral victory for our side. We cannot see to get an objective view which is honest and the truth.

Conclusion

I don’t paint the entire media in black but the fact is, as a watch-dog which passes sweeping judgments on the other estates such as politicians, bureaucrats, police; it must introspect more closely. The Fourth Estate has actually become a fourth-rate enterprise seeking TRPs alone as measure of success.