media news
media news
Commercialization of Media
‘CURIOSER AND CURIOSER’ CRIED ALICE IN WONDERLAND! I wonder how would she react to the current path the Indian media is treading. India is witnessing a rapid commercialization and diversification of media (news). One only needs to glance at the leading national dailies and 24/7 channels to understand the extent of its impact. Reality is nothing more than a series of moments. And in these very moments one can find elements of all that is strange, frightening, colorful, funny, ludicrous and fantastic. Who needs fiction when fact offers it all! But when it comes to the Indian media, there is sometimes simply too much being offered. Johann Wolfgang Van Goethe had felt that very few people have the imagination for reality. One wonders what the great thinker would have felt compelled to say after an evening spent surfing contemporary Indian news channels. Would he perhaps have concluded that too much imagination can mist reality, shrouding it in unnecessary layers of melodrama and exaggeration?
Our so-called news channels fall into this erroneous routine with alarming regularity. The concept of ‘breaking news’ in the age of 24/7 broadcasting has led to a tectonic shift in the paradigm- the spotlight has shifted from what matters to what sells. So the media is constantly on the prowl for fresh fodder-anything that exhibits potential to arrest eyeballs will do. Minor matters such as the relevance of the story, sensitivity towards the subject or the viewers, news prioritization, etc. get relegated to corridors of obscurity.
Here are some moments from the recent past which were pounced upon with glee by the story-starved ‘infotainment’ networks; moments which made the day for India TV and its ever-growing brethren; in short, moments which were made for the media:
* 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks
Terrorism, terrible as it may sound, is made for television. The dawning sense of horror, the magnitude of destruction, the agony of human loss is captured with maximum precision and lasting imagery through the electronic media. The terrorist needs the oxygen of publicity to survive and TV provides with him that. 26/11 haunts our collective imagination both because of the scale of terror and TV’s explosive coverage of the attacks.
About the Author
This article is posted by Nishu Chhabra. Bindassinfo.com provides free articles on many topics. Fore full article, CLICK HERE
Why are the news media considered the “fourth” branch of government?
What are the contradictions concerning the news media’s view of itself?
OK, so you got some opinions on this, yet the contradictions were side stepped for a couple of political positions.
For example, a lot of people think that not finding nuclear weapons in Iraq indicated failure of the policy to preempt Iraq from getting them. That is an example of the “propaganda” extant over the past several years that makes no sense, but that has also been trumpeted by the same media (or passively accepted, on the part of some).
Simple as it is, the opposite is true since if we had found nuclear weapons in Iraq we would have been too late to preempt their presence. While it is the chicken and egg issue, it makes a lot more sense to be pleased that they did not have them since they easily could have, given the tremendous efforts that Saddam had made over 3 decades to get nuclear weapons.
Yet, again, such ignorance does not touch on your question of contradictions in the news media itself, only on the contradictions found among those who observe the workings of government.
To focus on the true intent of your question regarding a very powerful entity impacting what goes on in this country while having a contradictory (flawed) foundation even in its own perception of itself, one needs to first understand what drives the news media.
One reporter revealed this to me as soon as he touted his “number of column inches” published. Keep in mind that most news media people are not rocket scientists, and many simply do not understand what they are reporting on, especially in our modern, highly complex world of technology and complex governmental processes. They publish what “seems” to be interesting (correct or not), and they have to make it interesting even if it is misleading or even false.
They are taught to tell both sides of a story, and they do this to a fault, thinking that what they are doing is “good” journalism. This is contradictory in that in many case only one side of an argument is really “right” and the other is really “wrong.” A news article that presents “both sides” in such a case is by definition unbalanced, not balanced. That is, such a story is just as useful as saying that some people argue that 2 plus 2 are 4, and that some people (just as credible as presented in the article) maintain that 2 plus 2 are 5.
From a personal example, as an expert on nuclear power plants, I was once asked by a reporter to participate in a debate on nuclear POWER PLANTS with someone who was merely trained by the military to clean up debris in the event that a nuclear WEAPON was involved in an accident. The fact that both topics contained the word nuclear was enough for the newspaper person to assume that we had equal knowledge about the safety of nuclear power plants. Such is your news media in this country and around the world.
So, all news media people are at least tempted to jump to errant conclusions and to confuse rather that elucidate an issue. On TV news programs, they have to display a serious, intelligent demeanor to convince people that they are credible and the issue at hand is an issue at all. They get paid millions of dollars for this ability to “show both sides” of an issue convincingly. Unfortunately, the average person has no clue regarding topics that are controversial and above the grammar school level.
So, the news media views itself as fair, but it is not able to be fair in the sense of getting things right rather than wrong. Also, of course, we have garbage in and garbage out to worry about. For example, please note that around the time graduate papers are due at our famous colleges, the news media sprout a lot of interesting “conclusions” from university studies, all of which seem to be a bit surprising (good news to them, of course). These are found in the “research” results of students struggling to get their degree awarded, which means some are likely to make up data rather than collect data. Who is going to check? Thus, one year we are told that wine is good for you, and the next year the opposite conclusion comes out.
So, to be fair to the news media, they are also the victims of bad information from polarized, ignorant, or misguided sources, and they can not tell the difference. These are, as stated already, very powerful forces in today’s instant media reporting. Errors, however egregious, are less interesting and less newsworthy, so they go uncorrected. The net effect is adverse even among the “best intentions” of the best reporters.
In short, since I tend to be long winded, the news media are convinced that they and their methods are the best approach, but they are simply unable to be “right” in a consistent manner, and it is nearly impossible for them to know this in many instances, regardless of how much “research” they do on a topic.
Even more concise: ignorance is bliss.
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