Monday, September 15, 2008

The Butterfly Effect

"The flapping of wings of a butterfly in one part of the world can cause a tornado in other!"

Now if you that thought this is impossible thing..... please think again. For this can be made possible by our ever hard working and overzealous media. These torch bearers of the Freedom of Press have simply forgotten the one fundamental fact..'Freedom bestows responsibilities.'

Not long ago, one of the most unfortunate incidents came to light that shook the very foundation of Indian family culture, the Arushi Murder Case, in which even before the judicial system could look into the case, 'free press' carried out a public trial and held an innocent man guilty.

Even more interesting was the recent CERN's Experiment, the sub-atomic particle smasher, where some 24x7 news channels went on the extent to predict the end of the world. For many people this was funny, but for many others it wasn't. After watching this piece of 'crap' news channel, one child committed suicide.

Now one thing that hurt me the most was the way a small quarrel among a group of students from a prestigious institutes was blown out of proportion, even of the leading daily devoting almost 1/8th of the page and with damning headline. These people don't realize that for their small gains they can jeopardize the entire career of students. Apart from bringing a bad name to the institute, their irresponsible, incomplete and spiced up article only added fuel to fire. I fully acknowledge that they wouldn't have known this ever had someone among the students had not passed on the information, but isn't it their responsibility to at least give the administration's stand.

Probably its high time that these people do some intro-inspection and realize freedom alone is doing more harm than good (at least at times). Infringing upon privacy of people can be shoot up their TRP but what about the pain, agony and emotional damage they cause??

3 comments:

Smart Primate said...

Completely agree with you... the primary objective of the media and press today seems not to deliver the news on face value but rather on improving their own TRP.

Let alone proper verification of facts, in more cases than not, the news is twisted and spiced up to suit the audience's need.

And the audience too lap it up... "after all it is happening to someone else, why should we care? It is entertainment for us."

This really destroys the credibility of the press and media. Next time when something really serious comes up, the public will let it pass as just another piece of shit. The term "Freedom of Press" seems to have lost its relevance completely.

You can't really ban them, that would be violation of the law. This has to come from within the people that they have a responsibility to not only their newspaper/ T.V. Channel, but also to the general and often ignorant public.

Anonymous said...

The state of media and news reporting (hindi journalism in particular)in India is deplorable to say at least. As wrong as the media houses may be, but it has to be agreed that the junta has grown so accustomed to spoon feeding that they just can't decide for themselves what they should or shouldn't watch. It's a business for the media houses and for them end justifies means. They don't care a fig if the public is getting misled. My point is, the audience should be discerning and mature enough. Take the case of Ekta Kapoor's soaps. The fact they are running proves that they are being watched and the fact that they are being watched shows the discernment(or the lack of it) of the indian audience.

I don't think the govt can do nothing to stop the what's going on. My special concern is the superstition of the indian audience being cashed by the news channels.The govt should ceratinly ban fake footages showing bhoots and crap.The news channels should also be made accountable for the damage caused to the reputation of some people caused by the media. In countries like US, news channels, newspapers and tabloid have had to pay huge compensation for defamation in the past. The law should be as stringent in India.

Unknown said...

good job man!!try to inbuilt this comment form with the full post page