Media - really too much!

The media especially television media has become very obstructive and in the face. Even though one can understand the plight of the television channels and their management the antics of the TV channels are becoming too much to bear. I remember the television channels goading a man who was threatening to commit suicide to do it as soon as possible. The stringers finally persuaded the man to pour kerosene on himself and gleefully filmed the same. The poor man was consumed by fire and died.

What was the role of TV in the above incident? Don’t the media have a responsibility in stopping the suicide and informing the police about the same? The media and the sensation mongers seem to be feeding on each other like parasites. The media has no self control nor follows any censoring. The media follows the crime scenes like a peeping TOM. It shows the death scenes very graphically and shows dead bodies and people hanging from ceiling fans. All gut wrenching scenes.

But that is not the end. The crime scenes are packaged and they are dramatically presented in the crime series that are aired every night. These nicely packaged and edited crime specials (some of them even have re enaction of the crime scenes with models acting as roles of the victims and the perpetuators of the crime) are very popular. The channels owners say that they are fulfilling their social responsibility role but are they not glamorizing the crimes! Blood and gore has become so common that children have become desensitized and are becoming apathetic towards crime, blood and violence. It is just another TV news item for them.

We can learn so much from the coverage of CNN and BBC. CNN covered the entire September 11th attack on the twin towers without even showing one dead body. Same is the case with BBC which covered the London bombing without showing blood and gore. The Indian media should remember that so that of blood and gore can be revolting. The black and white picture of the small girl who is about to be buried and her father gently wiping of the dust off her face brings all the horrors and the trauma of the Bhopal gas tragedy flooding to the mind. And to think that Bhopal gas tragedy is 25 years old! There was no hounding media presence at that time. Thank god for small mercies in life.

The media sensationalizes even the most trivial of the incidents. A man keeping more than 40 dogs in the compound or a film star celebrating his 54 birthday is treated as more news worthy than all the deaths of the farmers in rural India. It is indeed sad to note that no major media house has done a in-depth analysis on the farmers' suicides in India. A sorry state of affairs. The media should realize that it has a great responsibility and that it should not confine itself to the narrow band of customers that it thinks represents India – the urban middle class Indians.