The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Saturday 25 February 2012

INDIAN NEWS MEDIA – WE ARE ‘DESI’, FOLKS!


I had a discussion on ‘focus on international news events in the Indian media’. The way the Indian news media industry is evolving, such subject matters are discussed only in the closed door seminars and it was yet another one. Somehow, I was an unwilling participant to it. So while sitting there, I had no second thoughts about being deliberative on the matter. But yes, I was having some jolly sitting listening to the high-pitched eloquence one after the other.

Midst the series of verbal juggernaut, one thing was oozing out naturally; at least I am sure of that – the frustration of being compelled to follow the TRP dictum – the rgged attitude on the most relevant question. Its relevance has reached to the height of exasperation. It becomes clear from the fact that every such reference to this ‘TRP dictum’ has become so cliché that most talk about it for the sake of talking but very few are ready to be the part of the process on the journey to change.

Anyway, so it was about international news events in the day-plans of media carriers in India. Is there much to talk about?

I don’t think so given the abysmal share of ‘newsworthy’ international news elements on the display. And it is not a big deal given the terrible focus of Indian media carriers on infotainment in the name of news production and presentation. Okay there are few serious players but I am not talking about exceptions here.

The bunch of Hindi news vehicles (and some English, too) can claim to have 'some' international news elements in their day plans, BUT THAT, TOO, LARGELY CATERS TO THE DEVELOPMENTS LIKE ASSASSINATIONS OR DEVELOPMENTS THAT GENERATE DRAMATIC CLIPS AND SNAPS LIKE TSUNAMI, AVALANCHE, FLOOD OR QUAKE! (Though, the expertise and knowledge of international happenings is largely a sterile domain for them coming from a land of zero opportunities!)

Hallelujah!

So the brutal murder of Gaddafi was repeated again and again to the extent that watchdogs had to intervene to restrict airing of the clips, otherwise what could be said for how long the mad rush to google and air the most gruesome clip would have continued. For two-three days, there wasn’t anything newsworthy on Libya except the few seconds of clips showing the last moments of Gaddafi’s life. Not even a single show was on what would be the road ahead for Libya. Not even a single full length show was on the plight of war widows, orphaned children or raped women though Gaddafi’s female bodyguards were prominently on air.

Similar is the case of Syria. We will have some sort of coverage once the confused international community decides to intervene militarily. The visuals would offer great supplement to the sensation-hungry Indian media. Almost 10,000 are already dead in the terror and fury unleashed by Bashar al-Assad but the misery doesn't echo in the Indian media.

Indian media houses depute almost negligent resources including the manpower for their international news reporting operations. Even the serious players have just four-five outstation correspondents. The international news flow is maintained mainly by the inputs from the news wires and the major chunk is packaged into maddeningly paced 50-100 odd news stories with poor production values.

One global incident stands out that puts clear light on the state of affairs at Indian news media outfits. We had many of our media representatives in Egypt during the Tahrir Square uprising as it was visually so strong. But as the movement prolonged and it seemed the solution was not near, all of them packed up and came back. Pity us. None had the knowledge and the expertise to read the writing on the wall. Just few days later, Hosni Mubarak announced to step down. That was a historic day and not a single Indian media worker was there. Pity them.

Preferences, yes, its matter of preferences! We have broken breaking news stories like this actress is going to deliver a baby or that politician has grown stubble running ceaselessly wheels after wheels.

We had more of Michael Jackson's death stories than reporting on farmer suicides. (17,368 Indian farmers committed suicide in 2009, the year Michael Jackson died.) The controversy surrounding the Peace Nobel to Chinese activist and an honoured voice of dissidence in the iron-curtained country, Liu Xiaobo, almost went unnoticed.
 Yes, it is ‘the’ relevant question of preferences.

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/