The degrading media and the gross innovations

Oly Banerjee, INN/Gwalior, @Infodeaofficial

The Indian Media no doubt is right now on the epitome of journalism, with most of the channels having super high viewer-ship, but in order to stand out in the crowd, every show aired, must have its USP (Unique selling prerogative), a common term used by marketing companies, which defines the distinctive nature of a particular product available in the market. Finding or proposing USP is a real difficult task and demands time and brains.

Indian media houses seem to have calibered this challenge, albeit unsuccessfully. In the recent years, we have noticed a surge in modern technologies of reporting, some of which includes sending reporters for information coverage to places that posses life-risks, VFX background for easy understanding of an issue and a lot, these are no doubt worth admiring, but these media houses sometimes over represent situations, which makes the programme gross, reveals secret informations, reaches to the extent of lauding politicians, which gets embarrassing for the person himself.

All of this nuisance, forces the general public to question the existence of basic ethics of journalism.

Some of the recent instances, which helps in getting a clear view of the present situation.

• During the 26/11 Mumbai Attacks, the then NDTV reporter Barkha Dutt risked her life, to get to the militant infiltrated hotels, and interview people to give audience a clear view of the prevailing deadly conditions. She chose to interview a women, whose husband was hiding somewhere in the Oberoi Trident Hotel, which the terrorists had captured, forcing the women to declare on international platform, where her husband is hiding in the hotel, and conducted live broadcasting of the specially deployed commando’s operation, giving the terrorists the perfect clue, they wanted.

The book Indian News Media: From Observer to Participant by Usha M. Rodrigues and Ranganathan, even accused Barkha Dutt, who did ideal reporting during the Kargi War days, of reporting from the places which are considered ‘symbols of power and money’ or ‘icons of india’ and ignoring places such as the CST, the deep class divisions in India were on stark display, as CST at that time of the night was mostly inhabited by the deprived.

• In The month of March 2019, when the country was undergoing a state of turmoil, as Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was held captive by the Pakistani Army, despite of being blindfolded ,Varthaman was repeatedly interrogated by the Pak Army about his whereabouts in India, to which he simply denied to respond; the job for Pak was done free of cost by various Indian Media Houses, who before Pak Army could take him to their military establishment, reached in front of his house in Bangalore, and aired a full info episode on his whole ancestors and history.

• In Bihar’s Muzzafarpur, hundreds of children fell prey to Acute encephalitis syndrome and many of them died, the much acclaimed Aajtak anchor Anjana Om Kashyap, reached a hospital’s ICU, where the entry of outsiders is strictly prohibited and continued blaming the doctors for not performing their duties responsibly, without paying attention toward the guidelines of a protected medical facility and overlooking the number of patients per doctor. She seemed reluctant of the government’s role in this, and held doctors solely responsible for the crisis.

• Sudhir Chaudhary, the editor in chief of hindi news channel Zee TV, during demonetisation days, when most of the channels were displaying the benefits of the step, repeatedly in a cue, the editor in chief had some unexpected, burning information hidden in his pocket, he dared to declare that new notes would have GPS microchips installed in them, to catch incidents of robbing, money laundering etc, whereas from 2016 till 2019 there is no such information by the RBI of introduction of such high-tech notes, as of yet.

• During the election seasons, VFX and VR outshone the conventional or historical ideas of debating by calling spokesperson of various political parties, choreographing rallies, rather some news channels in an opportunity to elevate viewership thought of riding an animated helicopter to give a better understanding of the number of seats each party would probably win, making the whole situation look childish and gross. This elite method of air borne technology was used by CNN-News 18.