Issues, Issues, More Issues! India has never starved on the number of issues she has had on any typical day in the year, all these years. My morning paper hurls at me a hundred burning themes—some heart-breaking, some slightly auspicious and some instances of a deplorable lack of awareness in the general public. These can be as disconnected as “gruesome” murders, ethnic discrimination in reporting, stray rapes and organized assaults, the silence of a PM and its after effects or the noisemaking of the Opposition, the pros and cons of the Sethusamudram Project and the last of the Popad makers! All the centuries intervening between today and the 8th century –or even earleir--find their pale but certain reflections in our channels and newspapers; all that muck is what makes for items having enough news value in the news editorial eyes! What I rage against is precisely this! If I have had to maintain a fully loaded Archives Room at home to refer back to from time to time, it’s because of these issues needing a clearly thought out guideline! Still many of our ancient social inequalities are persistent, but why? Why are social evils still somewhat status-associated? Why is our education system so arcane? Why female foetuses still are killed in the womb? Media’s Private Unspoken Deadlines: The first factor that gnaws into the efficiency of publications is the sheer work related pressure. All journalists on active service for a channel or daily publication work under a million tons of pressure to submit their piece by such and such time; they can’t escape it, be it Christmas or Easter! This means that they must not only garner the news but also do the fact checking process well before the deadline. Of course modern technology facilitates contributor anonymity at times, which means that the journalists can ensure that no one is going to find out if there is such a person alive somewhere! Once we are anonymous, it follows invariably that, like we display our road rage in other places than our native village, letters to the editor invariably turn nasty and vitriolic!(Why can’t we be a bit more decent please?) Competition is, to put it mildly, fierce and literally ferocious. Recall what the Spiderman Peter Parker’s editor told him, “Bring me those photos of Spiderman or our rival will get them. Clear?” Another kind of anonymity can also exist. Increasingly, letters to the editor are being replaced by website comments, blogs and tweets. While letters carried the authors name, social media is often anonymous or pseudonymous. If you have ever said something more vitriolic over email or social media than you would have been willing to say in person, you know how this can happen! Focus on trifling developments: Across any nation many things may happen during a typical day, and most of these may be so insignificant that none of them have any importance beyond the region and location and also those we scarcely pay any further attention to them. Our media also emphasize the day-to-day events---- like inaugurations, obituaries, and announcements--- almost exclusively for selling more dailies rather than divert attention from a really tell-tale event or incident. Superficiality in the content, however, encourages shallowness of the reader psyche too in his or her appetites. The consequence invariably and predictably been that even our Civil Service spirants are poor at seeing UNDER the surface of an event, policy or project and then drawing conclusions from them. Our reporters often pick the wrong and the most inappropriate examples to prove their point. Reforms that are non intuitive have inevitably suffered from being reduced to ‘boxed’ items and being relegated to the last page if possible. Reflection, doubt and subtlety if not equivocation used to characterise politicians of our yesterdays but no people’s leader can afford it today. 90% of the programs on the idiot box channels are trash, if nothing else. They keep the complacent viewer glued, yes, to the screen—known as Channel Addiction-- but the quality of the programs leaves much to be desired. This has also added to the attrition of the human reasoning faculty and analysis skill to as hopeless extent. Quality Ombudsman for all Channels: Do we have any such agency? My answer is NO! AND we do need it, if only to dampen the serial makers’ overenthusiam! If our media are to really help in changing our society for the better, they need to be totally focused on enlightening our people through quality programs every single day. Speaking in a personal capacity, I have felt that Asianet of South India tries to be one, followed closely by Amrita, but then no other channel comes that close to really edifying and bettering our national thinking standards. Sun TV is pure business and entertainment to carry the commercials. Times Now is mostly noisemaking while Headlines Today is eaten through--- like a Hamelin cheese by rats—by commercials and sitcoms.BBC is an Arctic Tern flying high at all times. Global social media Issue: I admit that hate speech of any kind—and we do get a lot from our hostile neighbour with gnashing and 66 years-grating teeth—irritate us no end, but India is no longer the 17th century motley nation that the British landed on. A Brave New India—and Media’s Role in it! Our media have played an unforgettable change in bringing about changes this far though as a nation we have just begun our pilgrimage to being an excellent democracy! It’s a vibrant nation with 45%+ population of youth, most of whom are educated and employed too. Casteist elements are become obviously pure deadwood. ‘Marine turtle’ parliamentarians and ministers—that keep in silos of their own on fictitious grounds like representation of minorities-- are viewed more as intrusive clowns from their locality than as valuable assets to the whole nation. Incompetent ones are identified, questioned and then endured if they are senile. Bullock cart administrative styles have been pressured enough to undergo –and gracefully accept--some change for the better. India can’t insulate herself from the rest of the world as far as information accessibility, availability and pervasiveness are concerned. Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and Stumble Upon are global media for the people of this world –a global podium where the people of this country are—and ought to be able to -- free to share and exchange their ideas and opinions-- and no national government can ever pull their chairs from under them unless it’s at the cost of losing voter popularity. The motive the previous Indian government was screaming herself hoarse in this realm was laughably elementary: New Delhi-- like King Canute of yore that ordered the waves of the ocean to go back-- liked to put a leash on our present-day habits of free thinking and no-holds-barred articulation! More than all of us do, New Delhi knew very well that India has never been a democracy except in its topmost surface lamina—with elections and parliaments and all—and I am sure she would have otherwise tried to keep things that way for her own comfort—like that hawk says proudly in Ted Hughes’ poem Hawk Roosting-- except for allowing some recent dissident voices. Clamping down on social media is merely a continuation of what most national governments and royal ruling dynastic families share ---that hardworking Joseph Goebbels Gene! As such, it’s the bounden duty of the Indian media—whose earlier monopoly on what constituted real news worth publishing has got stymied by the global media today-- to fight this tendency tooth and nail for the nation’s sake! The Internet today is a universal platform as I told you; it can be used effectively to change siloed in thinking, ferret out dug-in malcontents and also edify, enlighten and educate people!! Quality Themes/Contributors: If our media is to play a more active history-changing transformative catalytic role, they must first of all exorcise the bogey of somehow filling their time, but instead start thinking of how to deliver quality content through their varied programs. Lesson One in this connection is that only significant themes must be explored in debates and discussions. The duration of a debate must be increased too so that a rationally satisfying conclusion or resolution can be arrived at. Examples are: The prevalence of honour killings in India just as they do in most of the Arab world, and nations like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey [As ridiculous as the 19th century Chinese custom of foot-binding, or duelling in Britain, it’s a shame that leads to the murder of more than a thousand girls or women in our neighbouring nation every year. It is not approved by morality, law or religion, and Islam in particular. But all communities practice this heinous deed.] The Indian media can help by shaming those that practice it for shame sticks whereas mere moral counselling alone fails! Not only should they pinpoint their reader population as clearly as they can from Day One but also go about in a no- nonsensical manner to devise programs catering to their positive tastes. This means that not only the font they decide upon must be eminently readable, but also the editorials must be on a nationally significant theme or topic. Those that contribute must be double-screened for their craftsmanship quality. Progressive thinkers need to be actively tapped for their contributions at all times. Nothing like this is happening today to the best of my knowledge among the channels and the newspapers in this country. Let’s think for a change about the India of our grandkids! What must it be like? What will happen if our media go on being reptilian even then?
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 05:24:29 +0000
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