Selective coverage of incidents is nothing new for Indian mainstream media. With utmost dedication and years of practice they have mastered this art to the utmost perfection.
It is quite understandable that media cannot cover everything that happens under the sun in this vast mass of land called India but demographic divergence is not a reason good enough to through the concept of media being the fourth pillar of democracy under the bus.
It might be mindboggling to understand why sometimes they ignore the gruesome situations in north-east affecting thousands as they might have pressing responsibilities of covering a very confusing family murder mystery from Mumbai. Why some incidents in Ranchi, Banaras or Gonda go vastly unnoticed while at the same time another one near to National capital gets a beeline of journalists thronging to divulge in every details.
No matter how blind one can turn but the continuous pattern in mainstream media reportage and outrage is extremely worrying to say the least. It is indeed a tyranny that mainstream media completely ignored when even one of their own was burnt allegedly by a UP minister in Shahjahanpur. It was only when social media barged into action that they finally took out some time to cover it a bit.
From many past events it has been very evident that there are two prime things dictating the screen time that any incident will get on any of our popular news channels.
First is proximity of the place of incident from their studios in Delhi or Mumbai and second is the possibility of converting the incident into saffron Vs green debate.
While shouting and howling on the top of their voices about degrading law and order situation or thinning line of dissent in a liberal society, they openly propagate fear and hatred in people towards each-other.
Needless to say the mob lynching in Dadri was inhumane and gruesome. It surely was something that no civilized society can tolerate or forgive. But what I found equally disturbing about this incident was the way it was covered and portrayed.
If you are not well read having a look at one of these video reports from ground Zero will make you will feel like India is no country for free citizens.
Intentionally the mob was given a face, a color and a religion. Repeated attempts were made to superimpose this unfortunate individual occurrence as the routine reality of India. A whole community was branded as the hate mongers and another whole section was portrayed as the helpless victim. If this does not incites communal violence what else does?
Is this form of responsible reporting?
Mainstream media will be first to call you a ‘pervert’ for thousand times on live stream in front of whole nation based entirely on a single-sided version but forget apology and you can’t even think of a second’s space when the courts might pronounce their verdict, few years from now.
Though it is not the case with all but for most people and channels it is safe to say that all they care for is TRP and in their race towards gaining it they have sold off, forgotten and mortgaged the basic principles of journalism. The fourth pillar is damaged beyond resurrection and it is about time that we actually start objecting.
Why are some of our well-known citizens so hell bent to brand India as the next Taliban? It took us decades to shed our image of being the land of snake-charmers and we are suddenly heading back to square one, in a worse term.
It is necessary to remember that India has been a victim of several terror attacks in the past. Many of these attacks have been described by their inhumane perpetrators in terms of ‘action-reaction’ for some of the other past incidents.
So while we criticize and condemn such incidents, it might be great to have some foresightedness as well. It is necessary to evaluate whether behind the veil of responsible reporting our mainstream media friends aren’t actually preparing the fodder for tapes that might be tomorrow shown in training camps of Lashkar-e-taiba to fill more militants with hatred towards our country and its people.
A line has to be drawn and this has to be stopped. This has to be stopped, right now, right here.
No single event between some individuals shall be portrayed as the reflection of complete society in such vast and diversified land. Sowing seeds of hatred on the name of demanding justice is as condemnable as the act itself.
The fourth pillar of democracy cannot have a different angle and camera with saffron and green lenses to cover such incidents.
If you have to call names instead let Indians be killed, let devils be hunted and let humanity be dead.
News reporting is not about making stories but reporting facts but sadly the 24*7 competitiveness have made these channels a factory of producing news. The facts are being conveniently marinated in heaps of gripping fictions to present a dish good enough to be served in your drawing rooms for hours in a stretch.
They have been shameless to pronounce about how terrorism has had no religion but a mindless insane mob had one. Let us save ourselves from indulging into their propaganda.
This great country India belongs to us all and not to any particular sect or fraction and it is onto us to make sure about how our acts and deeds cause no harm to this nation, intentional or otherwise.
Seems like India does not have an absence of regret but some of our learned journalists sure as hell have!
Media is worse than politician. Before this case, they were showing delhi gang rape case…are there no rape taking place in Delhi or UP or any other part of country now. Few years back they showed 24×7 live telecast of a boy named Prince who fell into borewell. Are there no other kids who are still keep felling in these kind of open borewells?
This is how media works in this way. They try to find the victim of the week and corresponding Monster of the week. They will paint it with religion, caste, state etc. They will then have discussion panels with politicians with no outcome only quarrel and noise (Arnab Goswami) and then in then end they will say see how politicians are politicizing this issue. Usually the victims are Dalits, Muslims and women and monsters are Upper caste, Hindus and men. Without verifying any facts they will run one sided (victim) story. If (God forbid) any riots takes place of this, they will always blame police, government and politicians. If government try to ban these kind of stories (which can induce riots), they will say it is curbing their freedom of expression. Ironically, websites of Hindustan times and Times of india and other, monitor the comments posted on their articles and conveniently delete any comment that is against that article.
In this current case in Dadri which I strongly object, very few (one or two) media houses reported that it was a hindu neighbours who hid the family inside there house when the mob came to burn the poor man. Anchors of all main stream media keep on repeating that an announcement was made on a loud speaker in a temple and the priest is still roaming free. I will point out that this is only one version of the story and the truth will come out the police investigation is complete and culprits behind the bar.
Dear self proclaimed intellectual and journalist…if you spend yr time watching shitty news channels and reading dainik jaagaran,dont paint all publishing houses with same brush.To take one example,a single naga accord was signed couple of days back,and the pages of the hindu and statesman were filled with the plight of north east people for an entire month.TFI seems to be too much moved by the communal tilt of dadri reporting,but when this page posts the plight of bangladeshi refugees based on their religious identity,thats the only sensitive reporting for you (yes it is!!).By going your idiotic and naive logic that such reporting would tarnish the communal harmony,i guess you also expct that media should also stop reporting caste based violence,for it would create an intercaste rift,media should also stop reporting cases of racial slurs and attacks on northeast people,for it would led to a regional divide,media should also stop taking the cause of social justice,for it would create a class conflict.Kindly put off your pseudo nationalist glasses,and look a bit deeper.The case of dadri is not an isolated incident,but the culmination of a collective common sense which judges someone’s nationalism and right to live based on their culinary preferences.Whats more,the responsible internet intellectuals and and likes of our cultural minister are more concernd about the peice of meat the man ate,as if the violence is partially justified if it was indeed beef.But you surely havnt took it seriously,it would be an insensitive reporting for you afterall.
The media DOES NOT outrage equally on all fronts. When did they outrage when half a million of Majority community were CLEANSED from Kashmir, the land where they are the TRUE natives? – 25 years on, still no outraging on it by so called Media.
They fake the news against the Majority community all the time.
Did the media EVER bother to report & OUTRAGE at the top of their lungs when we Bnei Menashe JEWS were persecuted & ethnically cleansed by the Indian CHURCH ? – Not a WHIMPER for us Jews, we only have Hindus to protect us from demon cults who want to exterminate us Jews (& everyone else) because their demonic holy books tell them to.
Well written article and the sad truth