News of no news...

Recently, I was holidaying @home and going furiously at my favorite time-passing activity. Click the remote the fastest that you can manage. Its a nice way to agitate mom and throw her off her routine marathi serials which let me watch my races and golf and soccer and any other sport under the sun...

I noticed that a new avtaar of entertainment has arrived in the form of news channels. I had read a report last week which says that they are the fastest growing media inititative across the length and breadth of India. Growing at 16 %, they far surpass sports channels except during the cricket fever; maybe. As i flipped through the multitude of these channels I realized news channels had arrived and Arrived with a Bang...

This got me thinking... What news do they show, which has all of us so hooked on???.. why do we watch so much of it and never get enough of it... Is the media coverage given to "Operation Prince" justified? Are news of desecration of some unknowns statue or prices of dresses worn by Hritik or such of the likes really deserving of the air-space and footage afforded to them?

What is the media upto??? I have been asking this question quite often; to myself and others over the past few days..rather weeks or months. I have always been critical of the way the western media picks and hypes up certain parts of a particular news. Also, the general public is very town centric and so a dog biting someone on his bum becomes a big local news out there.

This is a blasphemous misuse of the rights and powers vested in the media according to me. I used to have great pride in the way our media handled news and segregated and presented them with due importance.

This was, however, a few years back. When news was just that. Something you hear and take notice of. It was either a very good or extremely bad one that affected the way your world spun...

Cut to today and it is more about sensationalism. Anything to catch your eye, I say. The media wont stop at anything: be it malfunction or wardrobes at fashion shows or milk-drinking Ganeshas or rapist cops or corrupt politicians. The greed for titbits has meta morphised our media folks into ground hogs for whom any snippet is news.

There is no introspection and both the victim and the perpetrator are glorified. SMS contests are run daily and poor commoners are lured to participate under the lieu of great prizes...Everything is gift-wrapped under the pretense of being sensitive information or Breaking news.

The media has been converted into a circus where evrything from illicit love affairs to dastradly terrorist acts get equal publicity. That day may not be too far when media reports news even before they happen...

PS: Growing media influence has benefits too which would be discussed some other day...