Shame on Media

    Indian democracy is said to have four pillars – legislature, executive, judiciary and press which is nothing but media. Media has several different forms like – paper, television, social media etc., Many media is privatized and influence with government authorities can obtain you license to one of the lucrative industries. I am so disappointed with Indian media – anything and everything is sensationalized in order to garner viewership. Their only goal is TRP which is a key metric to denote how well they are performing in the market.

    Sasikala going to jail is captured like never before as if a freedom fighter is convicted, there are alerts, flash news, minute by minute updates on her activities on the day she went to jail. I am not sure about the judiciary aspects but when someone is convicted there has to be process in place saying person who is convicted should report within so many hours or days but here is a person who took her own time and media did not question that instead they passed on the news to public by elaborating hour by hour details. I was informed Thanthi TV program called ‘Kelvikenna pathil’ is a very nice program – yes Pandey definitely does a good job but if you carefully evaluate the program all he is trying to do is counter attack the person he is interviewing. Though he feels something is correct but still he goes up and beyond from what the other person is saying by cleverly presenting facts and smartly interpreting information. People may think Pandey is too good by grilling the person but actually he is trying to be loyal to his employer by making the program more interesting and gaining more viewership. Now let me talk about the super duper famous star ‘Gopinath’ of Vijay TV fame. The day he did doctors show I lost all respect for him but that is just personal level. He can talk about any topic under the sun given the amount of reading he does but where was he during Jallikattu protest, why did he not raise any opinion regarding Jayalalitha’s death, why did he not question Udayanidhi stalin during DMK’s regime on 2G scam, why did he not raise any questions regarding Swathi’s murder case …People may say he is not  police officer or government official to handle law and order in the state but he projects himself as a social activist and says his program will ask questions to raise concerns on current state of affairs. Now he went to a place to stop hydrocarbon project and also gave a speech – this is mere eyewash to gain popularity. He criticizes government authorities and at the same time interviews celebrities associated with political parties; why this hypocrisy? His program picks on good topics but intensity is lost when they edit which one is aired. I have heard from few folks that people talk quite a lot but the one appearing on TV is very less – obviously you cannot show everything but the way program is shown on TV is to attract good one liners, punch dialogues, emotional aspects and also anything which can has the potential to be sensationalized. Media projected Nadigar sangam elections so much which increased their business by many times but do an election comprising of 5000 votes overall deserve this much hype? If Vijay Mallya is arrested, Karunanidhi is hospitalized, Nayantara is separated from her lover, Simbu’s beep song is released then that news dominates the day overlooking many important aspects in the state administration.

    Money dominates the policies; If a jewellery shop is about to be opened in the town then they pay exorbitant advertisement fee to have their ad placed on the very first page. Media should have a policy of not to display ads in the first page. Some news may not have business value like an inspiring real time story but rather than placing it in a nook and corner they can give more real estate to the news by placing it in a nice slot to attract readership. Tamil Nadu farmers are protesting in Delhi and there has been little coverage and even when the coverage is there media is either sensationalizing or sympathetic towards the whole topic. Media started to cover Marina beach protest only after it gained more attention, basically only after it realized there is a monetary potential to the whole proceeding. Through the name of ‘Reality shows’ media also taps emotional quotient and translates into Business which is very sad. A small kid eliminated from a round is projected as a loss in Olympic race by having a BGM score, tears all round, close up shots of parents etc., It just pisses me off completely.

   There is quite a lot of investment made in starting a media and without attracting sponsorship it is difficult to sustain the competition. Once sponsorships come into picture then external influence comes into picture on how media is run and also founders drive the initiatives keeping the sponsors in mind and not the public. End of the day people are made fools by watching news which is not close to reality. Delhi gangrape attracted so much attention for media and then once the dust settled very few media covered whether justice prevailed; For media the news happened at first instance provided so much fodder whereas latter did not. Anyway I am not against media since they are the ones who bring the news to our doorstep but when media commercializes everything then I just feel very disappointed.