Breaking News

Just when I wondered news trivialization by a segment of Indian media could not get shoddier, it did. And how.

What provoked me to write this post? Ever since the demise of Late Shri Satya Sai Baba (Spiritual Godman), the Hindi news channels have been shamelessly showing reruns of how Sachin Tendulkar (an Indian Cricket Player) got emotional at the funeral meet and the way his tears were flowing incessantly like the Niagara.

So is it just me or does anyone else also feels that our news channels are on an absolute dive towards total decline? Indian media's proclivity for sensationalism is by no means a new trend. From the time when tabloids were first published in the United Kingdom, sensationalizing news stories, publishing unconfirmed reports, scandal sections and celeb news, became a component of the media. However, they never caused a grave danger to conventional newspaper since the readers were conscious of the fact that tabloids had more to do with amusement than sober journalism. Tabloid journalism never acquired an analogous grip in India in the initial 50 years of freedom; old-fashioned Indian society did not permit the similar level of frankness and impertinence that is so vital in tabloid journalism. Even in the post- freedom period, tabloid journalism was not flourishing barring the national dailies publishing entertainment news and celeb gossip in what is now prevalently referred to as “Page 3” news. However, with the dawn of satellite TV, tabloid journalism in India has discovered a new facade in Hindi and vernacular news media particularly the visual media. It soon disintegrated into something which is yet to be described.

Sensationalism is what sells and impels the media to a repugnant path and more prominently the visual media - principally the TV as frequently viewed- has forgotten the total concept of social connotation from its each and every story featured, associated with sex, fallacy, suicide and crime. It’s time to get beyond just broadcasting or writing news.

Journalism (whatever I understand of it) is inclined towards the capacity to voice an opinion and to comprehend and uphold the moral codes and norms of media. conversely, media nowadays- be it print or electronic are more bogged down by strength of their circulations or TRP ratings and consequently never falter to feature news which could be vulnerable to many.

In days of yore, it was merely limited to local media but nowadays national television news channels have started hitting the screen with bizarre stories and by building self directed chapters derived from sensationalism.

To be an accountable fourth pillar of a democratic system, the Indian media needs to deal with public interest and also value public sentiments by being morally answerable for its social repercussions in general. Journalists need to follow their scruples while reporting sensitive subjects like a funeral, natural calamity, rape or molestation etc.

Yes, you can question -- what is erroneous in showing rape as rape or murder as murder?—But as an accountable civilian you have no right to feature the disfigured body of a woman or those who are associated with her family.

The point in fact to be marked here is the transmogrification of news channels into a sensational, broadcasted tabloid that hunts and breeds on garish subjects. There could be two rationales behind this modification. First, that these television channels do not have the journalistic capacities to search for news stories that essentially matter and sanction the audiences with that information. Second, that there is in fact an audience, and a sizable number at that, that would much rather prefer sensationalism over useful news. My notion, thus, is that it is the former of the two which stands true.

Keep Reading!

Auteur