India post 90’s saw more and more private channels coming in. For people like me who grew up waiting for every Wednesday to watch chithrahaar (hindi songs), Sunday noon regional movie and evening Hindi movie it was a welcome break. For the first time we could see regional channels showing movies and songs on a daily basis and news also in our own language. As years passed by channels started mushrooming, catering to different category (news, entertainment, sports, etc) we all were so happy to see new one every month offering new dimension to watching television.
My irritation is not on the number of channels coming up, but on the impact it leaves on people and the way it changes their lifestyle. Days have gone where everyone in the family use to sit together and enjoy watching TV. Now it’s more of a fight of what to watch by whom. Being a male you end up on the loosing side to watch those malicious serials, which doesn’t having any meaning at all. By the time you get the remote in your hand and switch to news channels you hate the decision to do so. With each channel competing with each other on exceeding the advt slots than airing news.
Now the channels have gone one step further in making people to believe what they show is truth through sting operations. Just to increase their TRP’s these news channels create own story and cook up to show that they have saved India from dire straits. Not only that now these channels have become more powerful than government (No wonder each party owns a media house) and judiciary. They pick up one case and showcase to the level that they have bought in justice to people who were involved. The funniest factor is they run a sms campaign to justify it. I’m not saying doing this they are wrong but my argument is whether they are more worried on the verdict or increase their viewership.
Yesterday I happened to see another crap, where they aired Abhishek and Aishwarya going to Taj Mahal. Is this is a news to be put on a national news channel? Doesn’t India have other problems, which people should be aware off? Why cant they think kids watching this will be ignorant of differentiating what’s important and what not???
News channels should have a moral responsibility of showing the facts and relevant to one’s life. They should not be biased and should educate people on civics. Hope a day will come when these channels will show programs or news, which are worth watching. Or else it will be doomsday sooner or later.
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1 comment:
Nice post, Mano!! And agree completely that while media boom has its positives, it has also seen a considerable dumbing down of Media. Newsworthiness has been relegated to the dustbin as more and more trash is being aired in primetime in the elusive search of Breaking News-- the story of Prince being rescued from a hole was aired live for hours on primetime . While this would have ,ade a nice small human interest story, the media elevated it to a National Issue!!! And jus look at the treatment meted out to the reservation issue-- It was on air as long as there were shots of students getting clobbered by RAF . But the moment it became stale , they moved on again to trivia like Abhi-Ash wedding. True dumbing down ...
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