News - facts or story?
“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
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In the times that we suppose are unprecedented, it is not the ubiquitously luring dangers of the pandemic that scare me the most but it is the news; something that we are more exposed to than the disease itself. Open any news channel at any time (although maybe when they are actually reporting a piece of news and not discussing celebrity hairstyles or hooking up actresses with cricketers or reporting an Instagram video to be the best thing on the internet today) or read any column of any newspaper and you will find the tone of the report to resound that of someone telling their plight or sharing their joy or venting their anger or ranting their frustration. This may not seem a much of a problem as doing all that is the job of a reporter but it is a huge problem. And that is so because when a news report sounds like a story, it means that the reporter has aligned themselves in a position that either supports or stands against the interests of whatever or whoever is being reported.
In college, I took up an elective course titled 'Introduction to Mass Communication', and that course started with the statement that journalism is considered to be the fourth pillar of democracy. Therefore, I believe, that when we think of the nation balanced evenly on four pillars - the Legislature, Executive, Judiciary, and the Media, the alignment of the fourth pillar with any of the three other branches results in the democracy being crumbled and all you are left with, in place of media, is a propaganda machine serving the purpose of a few.
I do not believe for a second that any news agency tells its subscribers all that it knows whereas, in an ideal world, it should. But this is no Wonderland, and omission of news, in some cases might be treated as acceptable. I read somewhere that journalism states the facts and literature tells the truth. So, as long as facts are being told, journalism seems to be fulfilling its purpose. However, the selective omission of news to shape the psyche of the consumers is nothing short of a crime. And as if that was not enough, the agencies went a step further to deliberately serve opinionated stories. This has continued for so long that journalists now nonchalantly cross the line between objectivity and subjectivity every second as if the line does not even exist anymore.
I know that anyone reading this post would inevitably try to link it with the scenario today and I also know that it would be very easy to do so. That is why I wish to say that my problem is not with a particular news agency or journalist but the state of journalism as a whole, even including the self-proclaimed non-biased news outlets of the social media. My problem is that an average citizen is not being served with information but with an opinion.
―
In the times that we suppose are unprecedented, it is not the ubiquitously luring dangers of the pandemic that scare me the most but it is the news; something that we are more exposed to than the disease itself. Open any news channel at any time (although maybe when they are actually reporting a piece of news and not discussing celebrity hairstyles or hooking up actresses with cricketers or reporting an Instagram video to be the best thing on the internet today) or read any column of any newspaper and you will find the tone of the report to resound that of someone telling their plight or sharing their joy or venting their anger or ranting their frustration. This may not seem a much of a problem as doing all that is the job of a reporter but it is a huge problem. And that is so because when a news report sounds like a story, it means that the reporter has aligned themselves in a position that either supports or stands against the interests of whatever or whoever is being reported.
In college, I took up an elective course titled 'Introduction to Mass Communication', and that course started with the statement that journalism is considered to be the fourth pillar of democracy. Therefore, I believe, that when we think of the nation balanced evenly on four pillars - the Legislature, Executive, Judiciary, and the Media, the alignment of the fourth pillar with any of the three other branches results in the democracy being crumbled and all you are left with, in place of media, is a propaganda machine serving the purpose of a few.
I do not believe for a second that any news agency tells its subscribers all that it knows whereas, in an ideal world, it should. But this is no Wonderland, and omission of news, in some cases might be treated as acceptable. I read somewhere that journalism states the facts and literature tells the truth. So, as long as facts are being told, journalism seems to be fulfilling its purpose. However, the selective omission of news to shape the psyche of the consumers is nothing short of a crime. And as if that was not enough, the agencies went a step further to deliberately serve opinionated stories. This has continued for so long that journalists now nonchalantly cross the line between objectivity and subjectivity every second as if the line does not even exist anymore.
I know that anyone reading this post would inevitably try to link it with the scenario today and I also know that it would be very easy to do so. That is why I wish to say that my problem is not with a particular news agency or journalist but the state of journalism as a whole, even including the self-proclaimed non-biased news outlets of the social media. My problem is that an average citizen is not being served with information but with an opinion.
Maybe the entire demography is a salve of self serving lucrative opinions who's publishers are possessed by the rich and powerfull in this country.
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Very Well said
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