Just the other day I was browsing through random videos on Facebook when a particular clip caught my attention. It was a clip of a debate show on an Indian news channel. The panellists included a number of prominent personalities from various political backgrounds and inclinations, a few progressive feminists, social figures and news anchor who played the role of a so called moderator. The topic of debate was unclear as it was just an extract from the whole show, but it revolved around condition of women in India. Now, since it was a debate thus each one supposedly had their own right to take a stand and defend it, but quite often when topics like this i.e. topics with clear and morally intuitive demarcation of black and white are discussed, it becomes extremely risky for anyone to take stand for black and defend it. The clip wasn’t any exception either. There was 1 guy who wanted to put forth his views that he believed that women themselves were responsible for the condition of women in India, and he was literally shut up. The guy was embarrassed and harassed in the news studio and was even asked to offer an unconditional apology for putting forward his demonic views. That is when I realized the magnitude of deterioration Indian media has gone through over past few years. More than shocking, it is alarming and concerning.
What used to be news channels a few years ago have now become views channels.
With the inadvertent segregation of our natives into political regimes and sub regimes, even the news channels could easily be identified as belonging to one school of thought or the other. With the onset of a single point agenda for existence of such channels i.e. profit making, the quality had already gone for a toss years ago, but what is happening now is a completely different new low.
Media houses are no longer for the purpose of spreading awareness and bringing out the events as they happen, media houses these days are spreading their own biased, unbalanced views and passing verdicts even before any case could ever see the light of law. This is not enlightenment; this is a dangerous situation to be in.
People do not seek to look for any credibility certification before blindly believing anything they see on these news channels. Biased opinions are getting spread across large populations like a wild fire and even otherwise neutral people are finding it fashionable to stick a political standpoint. Probably at offices, tea shops, barber shops etc, it feels cool to be outspoken and propagate ones political views in a hard tone, and if those views are backed up by a so called authentic news piece then person in question feels the pseudo intellect. It reminds me of an episode of Friends where Joey mugs up an entire ‘V’ encyclopaedia to be able to contribute in the coffee house chit chat with his friends.
Corporate media houses are becoming bigger by the day. Names that just used to be the known journalists a few years ago are getting a celebrity status now with their Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts attracting hundreds of thousands of followers. A few of them are audacious enough to insult anyone on public forums who crosses their way. News has become a big joke and there seem to be absolutely no freaking control over what or what not a news channel could telecast on their show. Army strategies against a terrorist attack are being telecast live in loops, giving crucial edge to terrorists watching the shows live. Unproven allegations are being put on people and they are being judged as criminals of some sort. Achievers and successful people are being ridiculed for any nonsensical reason what-so-ever. Jokes on celebrities from entertainment and sports background are found to be offensive but jokes on state’s Chief Minister and nation’s Prime Minister are found to be laughable and in good jolly spirit. All of this and much more is happening in the name of free speech.
Freedom of speech – our constitution entitles us to it, no one can take that away from us, but the question to ponder upon here is………………Is freedom of speech a toy of rich and famous media houses?
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