Breaking today!!

There were days when news on television lasted for all of thirty minutes a day. And even in those thirty minutes they covered weather, international news, agricultural news, regional news and what not. There were no dedicated news channels bombarding us with fabricated, sensationalized and sometimes even manufactured news items. Who has control upon these so called media houses? Your guess is as good as mine! The question of control comes into the picture because of an apparent lack of value system that can assess what is covered and what is not. The content is absurdly organized and basically just exposed at their whims and fancies. One day the centre of their attention will be a politician who has laundered so much money, I can't even count it in one go and the very next there will be a sport event that of course needs coverage because the aftermaths of real issues really don't matter. We can totally afford to leave incomplete stories on the deck and move on with new breaking news everyday.Beating around the bush, taking things out of context, creating biases, etc are what these media houses specialize in.

There have been many instances where the facades melted away showing the real picture of these things. There have been times when they have been exposed. That Nira Radia case which brought into limelight Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi, the case when Barkha Dutt threatened to sue a blogger for writing about her dangerous techniques that she used during the Kargil war as well as the terror strike on the Taj.These maybe small instances but they are eye-openers and we have all heard about them, talked about them, known about them. But like everything else we have also forgotten about them. True, news needs to be covered and communicated to people across the country and the world. But then there is a way to everything. And this certainly isn't that. When the entire existence of these channels and papers depends upon the occurence of something unnatural or unfortunate doesn't it mean that they have a vested interest in that? It may sound a little outrageous but the whole world functions like that.The only mission of media should be to communicate information.But with increasing viewership(read money) and the esteemed TRP ratings maybe people lose sight of their purpose. And then begins a vicious circle of generation and propagation. We have all heard of the Fox network and Rupert Murdoch. They don't leave out anything. They don’t stop at anything. It's just reruns of petty and poisonous propaganda that doesn't really have a cause. All it knows is money.

Let's not forget that more than anything they are businesses. Their success in business depends on their ability to sensationalize stories and make people believe that they are doing it for a cause.A single case of rape garnered so much attention that it triggered hope of change in society. It was covered very extensively by each and every single channel, newspaper and any other kind of media. They said they will not let people forget it. Well, less than six months have passed and nobody has a clue about what is going on with that case. The scary part is that the media could have easily let that incident go by. Like thousands of similar incidents that take place everyday anyway. But they saw something in there. They saw that it could become a big story. Until the next big story of course, maybe an election or a cricket match. Anything.It wouldn't be fair to paint a picture showing them as completely devoid of morals and ethics. Or so it would seem.

The thing is they really don't have a case. Why a potential big story material is completely abandoned is beyond my understanding. A man has been on a hunger strike for 11 days now. Those ten letters are enough for all these media entities to get together and create the biggest story of the year so far. Irrespective of who that person is or what the reason for the strike is. So why aren't they doing it? Why has every one of them decided to ignore this news? What could be the reason? Again, your guess is as good as mine!

The thing is it is easy to fight mediocrity than deliberate failure. Failure for money. Failure for prominence. A short lived one at that. It could be just a failure because of ignorance or lack of skill. But if it isn't, if this is deliberate, if this has some deeper role in the way our society functions then we have a lot of questions to answer. We who? We, the people. You see, the question is not whether we can rely on them or not. It is whether we choose to do so. And while this is no election where we can go and vote, lets not forget that we do have that tiny little thing called the remote control in our hands. Because news is not entertainment. It is not a way to kill time.It has the capacity to change lives, change societies, change the world. And maybe it is fine if it doesn't change the world or succeed in doing anything good but if it is moving in the opposite direction then we all have a lot of distance to walk to safety.

The ship will take us down too. Because at the end of the day it doesn't really matter whether justice is done or crimes are exposed. All that matters is whether the pockets are full. And we all know what happens when the pockets are full. We all fall down.