What a Good Morning

I have been thinking of writing these thoughts from the last many days. Although I was intentionally delaying it , but every passing morning enforced by viewpoint, so much so that I could hold no longer, and thought of sharing my worry. "Worry" sounds like a contrasting word, if you match it with the topic of the blog "What a Good Morning"....but then the feeling of well being is the last thing that is communicated to me, or for that matter to all of us, by the newspapers early morning !

Since I don't have any charming kid or a beautiful wife as of now ( its not that I regret this!), its the sweet smell of the newspaper ink and lovely view of its masthead that wakes me up every morning. But frankly speaking, now I am fed up of getting up day after day with horredously regular news reporting of bizarre incidents of murder, fire, controversy, rape, adultery, scam and political mismanagement. There is a limit to everything, and I guess our national media is just on the brink of crossing that limit of public tolerance. I am surprised how positivism and factual reporting have very easliy been replaced by the news that sell, and help them in creating further panic so that the readers wait with bated breath for the next days edition....much like the sizzling "sansani" !

Suddenly I start getting a feel that its the national media that manages the mood and temperament of the nation. I have a specific example of a national daily in mind. Few months back, this national daily was going ga-ga over how "poised" India was ( is it now also ???), and in that "golden" era, one could read article after article on the positive developments in the country. Surprisingly, during that period, when the newspaper even launched a special website, everything was supposedly going great in the country, or at least it was being reported as being great, and even the biggest of unscruplous activities or greates of national developments got the least of attention. This was for the simple reason that majority of the article space was pre-assigned for the specially "poised" articles. However, as the launch got over and it was "regular" days for the newspaper, one suddenly noticed a storm of "spicy" reporting incidents that had the propensity to rock the nation, be it the dreaded "Nithari Kand" or the "Shilpa-Gere" imbroglio, or the relatively regionally concentrated "Kauserbi" episode from Gujarat. Was it just a coincidence that these events occured at this time, or is it a reality that any other incident would also have been equally reported, just to create the regular "spice" in the newspaper , on regular days!

Its not that the media has always been like that. In fact, historically speaking, some of the regional and vernacular newspapers and magazines have been instrumental in the freedom struggle of our country, acting as a mouthpiece for the patriotic writers to instill the feeling for nationalism in everyone. This has been the history of mass media in our country, where truth has prevailed, and has been made to reach the people, even if "flour chapatis" were used instead of paper ( dont be surprised...its true about freedom struggle !) or blood had to replace the ink at times.

This is a surprising shift in national reporting from nationalism towards commercialism, where almost everyone think of writing, editing and publishing something that sells. I am indeed surprised to notice how national media is managing what people read, and thus how they feel. They need to understand that they have a bigger responsibilty bestowed in them, and it is the media which is a true harbinger of the "Right to Information" for majority of the nation. How they have to do it, is still a question that looms in front of it. But, they need to do it soon is something that I find undebatable. And sooner the shift to maturity comes, better it is for the nation as a whole............after all media is the mouthpiece and spokesperson of a nation, and none of us would like our nation to be so frivolous !