Taliban Media

Recently, I was seeing a program on a reputed English news channel, having a reputation in my mind one that subscribes to a particular ideology. As usual they had two imminent lawyers from the two leading parties, connected over the satellite. The moment the program started, I knew that they will try and come to a desired result which suits their ideology. This made the watch much more interesting. I could see the host tried to sound neutral occasionally giving advantage to one of the lawyers on the panel, with questions which were more of a hint to answer then a question itself. The other poor chap, I could just pity him was almost silenced once he had a valid point to make. Once in this kind of discussions, panellist any way are at mercy of the studio that can enable or disable there audio at their will. Finally the time was up and the host struck the final nail by giving the final comment at the end, giving no chance to anyone to contest. I had my wife beside me, and I thought to do my little survey there and then, I asked about her final view on the issue and she just sang the way host of the news channel made it so.

This was one of the recent ones in my mind and hence it found it place as an example here. We tend to follow these news on TV like never before and we tend to believe and have confidence on them also like never before. Today we need to introspect how much reliable this form of media is to us. Media has gone overboard to make the point that there cannot be a Taliban way to enforce thinking amongst people. They have stood strongly by that all in unison. If someone is the biggest culprit of “talibanisation” of thought it is media itself. Today’s media forces its views to the people. To me “talibanisation” is forcing ones views on others and any body does that is a Taliban. I agree there can be various ways of doing it some are more violent, like what media would like us to believe about the real Taliban ways, but the other softer way to forcing views that being practised by media are no different at the end of the day.

The news channels are agog with a new story. Some group feels that the “pub culture” can be abolished if they start attacking them violently. Even worst they have a new fad that if they find a couple on Valentine’s Day they will forcefully get them married in the registrar office. I agree this couldn’t get more bizarre then this. Imagine it is the right time to get married at zero cost and probably get a marriage video made free of cost. Even worst people (irrespective of gender) can now have a forceful marriage by just holding the hand of the partner in the group’s glare.

Media has a big contribution on this issue in two accounts. One being they are responsible to make this group popular from nowhere. They did not heed the advice of the state politicians saying that this is a small issue do not blow this out of proportion. Everybody then wanted the slice of this spicy lip smacking pizza as if there will not be a second chance to eat it out. I was amazed at the magnitude of coverage in all the TV channel and Newspapers that all the other important but not so glamorous news were almost lost. They succeeded in the “masala” ingredient they required to make their otherwise flat tasting news for now so many days. Secondly in this process they also pushed the group to the wall on its Ideology. The group had no other option but to enhance their stand from there. When the group offered apology the matter should have come to rest but then the spice would have been over too.

This is no secret that when the drastic act went under full media glare. In fact TV channels are taking pride in identifying the miscreants now. But this also means they had advance knowledge of this incident and they knowingly did not inform the police. I think this should be a criminal offence under the law and fail to understand why action is not being taken against them. Secondly if media is so morally shaken by this incident why didn’t they stopped taking photographs and stopped people from doing such things. I believe media needs to answer these questions both morally and legally.

I do not know how anyone can think of changing people’s mind forcefully in this democracy. If the group believes that the culture has to be restored to the people I guess that they should have taken the other way around, spoken to people reasoned them out etc. I would definitely like to examine and understand what they are trying to tell thou there way of saying things are simply not agreeable.

Other day the Union health minister said that more and more of youth are becoming alcoholic. Media thought that they have got another thread to ridicule the entire fact and they just went ahead ridiculing the health minister. I am not a great fan of politicians in general, and health minister in particular, but I would stand by and hear carefully what he is saying. He is a medical doctor himself, he is the health minister of the country, having all the facts and feature, and most certainly more then I have, and I guess what most of others would have. Above all he can not be ridiculed the way he was done. Media found humour and merit in another union minister who has declared “Pub Bharo” as an “andolan”. The person required to be less obsessed with the issue and also see the issue from all angles. It all required from the media was to give the other side of the story too.

Today Media is a big business, they are listed in stock exchanges, they have something called TRP to fight for, they have their ideological preferences, they do have their business and political compulsions and they have a product called “News”. We need to understand that media is made up of people like you and me. There is no one who could dare to do scrutiny on them, and they have the most powerful weapon of the modern times. The time has changed so much that I cannot even quote “pen is mightier than the sword”, both have become more of ornamental stuff now hence could be replaced with the word of your choice. Hence it is prudent to look every bit of information they provide under those lenses.

“Dogs do not eat Dogs” is a saying. I just read this phrase used in one of the biggest movie legend’s blog in context of media. This can be replaced to more palatable “Humans do not eat Humans” and the meaning won’t change a bit if you are not considering cannibals. Media as an industry they work on this principle for sure. They all do wrong, See others wrong but while reporting they never do, for or against their rivals. Still I could remember “vote for cash” issue in the Indian parliament. One of the TV channel did complete sting operation on the camera, but later on to the surprise of all including the opposing party in the parliament they never went ahead of the telecast. Media was suspiciously quieter on this issue. This casts a big question on the genuinely of the particular channel and media in general. I cannot even say that take all the news with a pinch of salt or spice it is much more then all of those.