Take my newspaper. Just take it. And, I am going to throw my TV away too, in case anyone’s interested. For it seems that there is nothing other than bad news these days. No, make that shockingly awful news. Not just the boo-hoo types. But the ones that make you sit up and say, “Dude, wtf?!”
I mean what has happened to the standards of journalism here? News channels seem to have made it their “bidness” to create sensational stories from utter rubbish and spew it on the hypnotised public. Even worse, the newly educated, suddenly Benji-spending middle class of India is devouring the crap being dished out in equal fervor. Every night that I have sought to update myself on the news, I have been subjected to “Tabaahi ki roshni” or “Sai Baba ka adbhut chamatkar” or headlines of similar ilk which is nothing but hyperbole for a solar eclipse or a supposedly alive eye of Sai Baba(this reminds me of the similar hype that was created when it was found that Ganesha idols drank milk..remember the insane and insipid coverage of that, anyone?). I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry when I saw the story about the Oriental mummy who had been asleep for thousands of years and had now been disturbed from his hellish slumber. That was a PR plug for a movie – “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.” Lovely.
Did I miss the time machine that transported us back to the Jazz Journalism era or what? Why the need for all the hyperbole? Is the public psyche of India so retarded that we actually appreciate these banalities made into grandiose episodes like some Bollywood movie? Or do news channels have the false belief that by repeatedly telecasting their buffoonery they will hammer it into our heads? It’s a battle of repetition versus retardation and it seems that latter is taking a clear lead.
I certainly don’t buy that there is no worthwhile news to be covered that stations has to resort to this chicanery. There is plenty of sensational happenings everyday – stampedes, bomb blasts, famine, flood – take your pick. While scion of India shining, the Nano project is whacked around among political factions like a ping pong ball, and hundreds are trampled in narrow alleyways of a temple, stations are licking their nibs and scribbling down lines and plots that could send Ekta Kapoor’s writers scrambling for the hills. Shockingly, these are the very stations that are high in TRPs ratings and channels that still hold onto some fragment of journalistic integrity rank at the bottom of the ratings.
Don’t even get me started on the newspapers. Gossip is the new frontier that newspapers have boldly gone where they hadn’t gone before. As if all the aunties that have ever fed the grapevine have suddenly been wiped out in one fell swoop, tabloids in Bombay are crammed with one gossip story after another and faithfully taken over their role. A loves B, B was at a rave, X,Y and Z were there too, that’s when Z decided to make fun of C, an ex of A, A was rather upset, bla bla bla…I can feel my brain cells dying from lack of stimulation as I read the morning news. My intelligence screams in pain at this attack of insipid happenings about people who live so well-off that nothing can ever harm them, and whose lives would be no different if people like you or me who have to read about them popped off tomorrow.
The only thing I do look forward in the news is the Sunday editorial – thank you God for Bachi, Jug and the likes who still have a sane head on their shoulders and are not afraid to call a solar eclipse just that. A freaking eclipse.
P.S: I am not kidding about the good news part – please do share if you have any. I am all ears to hear something positive happening in someone’s life.
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