Saturday, April 17, 2010

More on media

I think a few people have taken my previous article in the wrong sense. There are 2 things that the media does that people do not like:

1) Make news out of silly things; Eg the BBC story in my previous blog or the Sania-Shohaib hype.
2) Polarized view: Terming Varun Gandhi as a Hindutva poster boy (with Hindtva in a negative connotation) or making fun of Palin writing on her hand (I find this very practical).

I am perfectly fine with the first and I am totally against the second. It is not without reason that some of my friends tell me that I am stuck in the wrong job and I should be a page 3 writer instead. To my defense I will say that yes I openly admit that I do read gossip news, but then the fact that they appear in the front page and also are listed as the most read items prove that many people do the same but not accept it.

I do not see any reason why Sania Shohaib news should not grab all headlines. It has got so many angles to it. Love amongst warring countries, an immensely beautiful bride, a banned captain, even a fat ex-wife. Even that opens up new discussions, is man really a devotee of beauty? Why is fat ugly etc. At least the other woman was equally fair. It would have been even more dramatic if she was not. I totally gulped their latest walk-the-talk interview with Shekhar Gupta. They looked so human, totally in love not very different from the many newly wed friends of mine. I like it when I see celebrities behave like normal people. There was one part in the interview where Shekhar asks Shoaib if he is the quiet person and Sania is the talkative one. Sania immediately jumps in to say that spend some time with him, you will se how much he talks. I can so relate to these observations with people around me.

I do not even feel guilty of reading this article “Ash's secret weakness” first in the morning when the main news was probably some suicide blast somewhere. This headline was so mystic and could mean anything from the “good news” to the exes. But as it turned it, it was her craving for sweets. Even then I was not disappointed because I am a sweet tooth too. Also, putting a picture of Aishwarya Rai on front page should attract more hits. Sometimes I feel the whole controversy around Bachchans being angry over Ash's false pregnancy reports was just some irresponsible journalism by some writer who was asked to write a article around a picture and not put the picture for the article.

But then tell me, who would have read a killing of not very large number say 5-6 jawans/militants in Kashmir next to a headline like “Saurav slams Sachin” with the news being a terrific victory of KKR over MI in the last league match of IPL3 (unrealistic wishful thinking).

News channels will and should continue to give us what we/mass likes. The thing it should not do is bias the views. Give all news. We will read what is important for us, but why give your own angle. But then again, the final call lies with us; we should be smart enough to filter the actual news from the biased one.