Rupert Murdoch and his media empire has been in news recently and a potpourri of questions have been raised ranging from his family’s control over the business group to phone hackings.
I haven’t followed his news much; nor do I intend to. I only wish to take his name to point out to what has been and is a serious concern for me – regional electronic media.
As a kid I have grown up watching the state owned Doordarshan News channel and have formed my notions of how news needs to be delivered. The job of the news reader, in my humble opinion, is to deliver the news and not make efforts to manipulate the emotions of the viewer. Today’s regional electronic media( I am referring to regional since I don’t watch any other stuff much) seems to be making efforts only to make entertainment, sensation and money out of news; nothing else. 24 x 7 news channels are lowering their standards every day in a bid to grab the viewer’s attention. Everybody seems to be interested in TRP ratings; none about the sanctity of journalism.
I sometimes see field reporters who can barely speak a sentence fluently and confidently. The presenters in the studio are slightly better but are highly manipulative in their voice modulation. The background music scores are provocative. The visuals are half-baked or misplaced. News and stories are created out of vacuum just to fill that 24hrs. Why don’t they telecast only for 5hrs a day and give us news instead of nonsense?
Electronic media has so much more power than print media and yet they misuse their power. Being a telugu, the only good telugu news channel I see is ETV2. Probably, they have borrowed heavily from the rich experience their house has in the print media; even they have scope to improve. However, they are far better off than the others.
The fourth estate, as described by the constitution, seems to be failing so badly. This is a bigger threat to democracy than selfish politicians. Journalism has been used so widely by our national leaders during freedom struggle to unite the nation. Today the electronic media seems to be united to slow the nation’s progress. Fortunately, I see two things to console myself:
· Internet as a better platform for information exchange.
· Those who sit all day infront of the TV don’t matter much and those who matter much aren’t sitting all day in front of the TV.
