(Mis)Informed

I have been planning to write about this for along time. But somehow didn’t find the right words for it.

Today I was going through one of the forums on Orkut and I came across this

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=31192

My thoughts in this regard were more focused on India’s unceremonious exit from the World cup and how the media has been able to make an issue out of something that doesn’t really effect our daily lives. And I don’t really blame them for it. I think we are as much to blame as them. We make such a hoopla about these things that media just cashes on them.

But what I blame them for is their attitude while dealing with the issue. Media was supposed to be a tool of forming public opinion. But lately the barrage of news channels and print media has certainly changed this. Not once during the entire fiasco did I see any news channel take a stand and stick to it. Everyday they found a new scapegoat. And the previous day scapegoat became a Hero. Their attitude while covering the entire thing was that of just keeping people interested and glued to their channel no matter if they contradicted anything they had said as soon as an hour ago.

Earlier it was Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappel who made India lose, then it was the senior players in Sachin and Saurav and when Sachin came out with a statement it was Greg again. And when Greg quit it was the seniors again. And it was not as though they were reporting these things. No they weren’t. Rather they were openly blaming anyone and everyone whom they found guilty.

It was really sad to see that a medium that’s supposed to form a public opinion couldn’t form an opinion of their own. What drove these guys wasn’t News and keeping people informed. Rather it was the sponsors and the money. And it is as true for the Indian Media as it is for the British Media in the article above.

And it doesn’t end at sports. Movie stars, politicians, and even the common man isn’t spared by them. But sadly enough “we the people” like to get informed by news sources that would make the news interesting and spicy rather than let it be informative. It’s a vicious circle that we find ourselves in. and one of us has to find an exit out of this or we’ll be running around forever.