Indian media

In last few days, the Indian media has been exposed of their dirty tactics and profession. What more has been exposed is personalities of some of the near & dear ones, based on their response to some of these events. Some public events provide a vent to the collective pressure cooker situation of repressed thoughts - repressed for being out of sync of the contemporary revolving ideologies - either for being too ahead of time, or for being too behind.

Anyways lets go back to nauseatic state of media (atleast in India) in current era. From my eyes the curtain was raised in General elections. Where media was happy to shamelessly edit videos of some sting operations to convey a completely different story than the actual, or force opinions rather than allow discussions. Though new to me, I realized that all these things have been the routine stuff for media and journalism. But the things hit the rock bottom for me with recent incidents about Deepika Padukone, and Rajdeep Sardesai. Anybody following the news would know how cheap tactics did media houses like TOI and CNN resorted to. In one case, they have not hesitated in objectifying a women (I doubt Deepika minded it, but the point here is bigger than that). In the other, they went on to agitate a hot discussion, call educated people a mob and abusive words, and humiliate India at world stage.

But fortunately, both these incidents media has taken some beating and has not been able to pass through making profits by butchering morality. After long time, media houses are being derailed. I agree that they are in there to make profits, and have some constraints which don't let them be idealistic. But the cheapness and brutality they chose in replying back to Deepika, wasn't about constraints - it was about malicious intent, arrogance and misplaced ethics. (For facts - I am completely on side of TOI that Deepika did all this for her movies' promotion). Case of Rajdeep Sardesai is relatively less glamorous but of lot more serious concern. This has elements of anti nationalism, and face to face elements of animosity. Worse is the cover ups by media & paid twitter trending by media. It makes me yuck. Anyways I wanted to try to write something more meaningful, and will try to keep myself away from this cribbing.

How do we react
Other thing I like to be critical about is our responses themselves. Most of us even the educated ones still do behave as the 'mobs'. Most of us have our favorites. And can't hear anything against them. Whenever a negative facts comes out about our favorites, we will shout tons of negatives about his competitors. Why do we act so insecure? Because one person is saying it, does it change the truth? And if it does, then what type of truth have we been supporting. Can't we just get back saying - yes this is a weakness of my favorite, but he has lot of positives too. I agree that media houses don't give chance to use conjunctions and complete the thought. They definitely are at fault, but should we become like them ?

I don't think so. My thoughts and temper boil too. But i don't feel comfortable tossing them in the air by blowing off the lid. The flow of boiling thoughts is far from laminar - it is turbulent and hard to predict - its hard to control and navigate to make sure that it communicates the intent.

What can we do?
Our biggest power can be teaching lessons to media when their mistakes are caught. For e.g. in Rajdeep Sardesai's case - can we all get together and trend - #UnfollowRajdeep OR can all the US settled Indians (who keep itching to contribute) do something to ensure a legal action against him. There are many ways we can contribute - each of them needs joining people - and each is difficult. But we need to be strong on our characters first, and then on our will or maybe vice versa.

Trends
Thankfully not whole of Indian media is screwed so badly. There seem to be examples of some really passionate folks such as News laundry, viral videos like TVF and AIB etc. who are trying to pass messages in their own way through new technology. Taakat ka santulan bane rehna chaahiye.