The sad state of news channels
The media these days has become intensely annoying and irritatingly irresponsible. Given the absolutely overwhelming number of news channels on air, it is inevitable that all of them would try and squeeze the last drop of 'news' from any story. But it seems that some common code, although unwritten, which existed even 2 years back is being slowly breached.

Take the recent case of the carnage in North Bengal. Gruesome scenes permeated the event and lasted for days. Newspaper reports of the bloodbath indicated the amount of shocking pictures that could be visualised. Yet the channels gladly put them on air.

Even a year back such unabashed and brazen shamelessness was not evident. I remember the time when even the sanitised Gulf war that came to the Indian viewers through The World This Week used to be preceeded by a warning about scenes of graphic nature. Not any more ! Mr Prannoy Roy's own channel has been often guilty of transgressing the line between news and morality and much less said about the local channels the better. For the lack of news and headline making stories, these resort to tactics that are the domain of the so-called 'yellow press' milking every story for what it is worth.

Indian viewers spend a considerable amount of time glued to the TV sets and while these might not directly induce the events, the rising trend of violence in society do tell a sorry tale. Accountability should be enforced by ensuring that offending channels are censured. Punitive action although bordering on tokenism, might go some way in cultivating the public perception of the channels and force them to clean up their act. The sooner that happens - the better it will be...




- posted by sankarshan @ 11/10/2003 04:15:00 AM