Neither the noise nor the silence of our media will have any long term positive impact on the society, on the other hand, both may result in unintended and unwanted consequences.
It is in every one’s knowledge
that media reports news and events selectively. ‘Breaking’ news and
‘sensational’ news are not just subjective in the general sense of choosing
according to one’s interests or prejudices but they are deliberately chosen to raise
the TRP ratings. In the process many more interesting, worth covering and
important events are being deliberately left out. This discrimination is not
just among various events/incidents, but also among various castes, classes and
categories.
This news article (“Ignored and
discriminated against: The sad story of India's paralympians - http://www.firstpost.com/sports/ignored-and-discriminated-against-the-sad-story-of-indias-paralympians-2053495.html”)
shows how less an attention these sports’ champs got. Better media coverage
helps in garnering more support for various sports. But many media channels
think that (and practically speaking rightly so) there is no need to cover
certain things as there is not much audience, living the point aside that there
is no audience because many are not aware.
What is the way out of this
vicious cycle? It needs courageous visionaries from both the sides – media as
well as audience, though it is more important for them to be present in the
media. We have come across many movies (Taare
Zamin Par, Chak de, Stanley ka dabba),
ideas (Halla Bol – series highlighting
social issues), shows (Satyamev Jayate)
which took up a not-so-popular subject and through their work tried to make it
popular. They proved that people actually supported good thoughts when
presented in an interesting way.
On the other hand, even if they
cannot make things interesting for audience, it is media’s responsibility to
bring out the unheard and let people know. Certain ground realities like
untouchability, caste and gender discriminations, child labour, poverty etc
needn’t be packed nicely but a passionate presentation will suffice. Many a
presentations by media tend to raise sympathy among the viewers, while it is
empathy and compassion that are more important to be spread.
With every right comes a
corresponding duty. Media has the right to speech (even selective) but has an equal amount of duty to give the whole information, and cover all events equally
passionately. The movie “Hitler – The
rise of evil” portrays a character of a journalist who dares to raise his
voice against the atrocities, brutal and autocratic ideas of Hitler and how
Germany and its people will pay for their ignorance and silence. He loses his
job, and was taken to concentration camp and ultimately gets killed. His lone
efforts might not have changed the course of history of Germany, but had his
contemporaries in the media put a collective effort for the larger good of the
society, things would have been different. Similarly, neither the noise nor
the silence of our media will have any long term positive impact on the
society, on the other hand, both may result in unintended and unwanted
consequences.
