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Indian Media: Getting Dumb and Dumber

Surreal Blog #5

Date: 18 Mar 2019
Time: 11:24 pm

Indian Media: Getting Dumb and Dumber

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, that’s the power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” - Malcom X(American minister)
Day by day, news channels all over the country are losing their sensibility in the name of getting TRP1. They are getting competitive which should be good thing but it’s not. You must be thinking why, let me tell you my reader, because they are getting competitive for wrong goal. They should be competitive about showing genuine news faster than others and news that actually matters but sadly they have taken it in the other way. They are getting competitive in goals like who shows most irrelevant news, who can make people cringe more, et cetera.
Earlier they showed people what they need to know and which were relevant but now they show what they want you to see and it doesn’t matter if you care about the content or not.
I will give you some examples.

News then:

  1. Today, PM will inaugurate XYZ bridge in PQR city.
  2. Yesterday, famous artist ABC passed away at the age of 78.
  3. President of Japan to visit India for 3 Day tour. PM and President will discuss about alternative energy sources.

News now:


  1. (translation: Do aliens drink cow’s milk)

  2. It is lyrics of a song (translation: she says no no (tried to use some pun)) This was headline our beloved news channel used when Nana Patekar2 was accused of sexual harassment by Tanushree Dutta.3, 4

The Ultimate Stalkers

I get the fact many people idolize celebrities and want to know about their lifestyles and all. Journalists do a good job in telling us about it but sometimes they cross the limit just by one or two miles. If you are active on social media, I am sure you know about media’s latest crush our very own Taimur Ali Khan5. Ever heard of the phrase “Love at first sight”? Believe it or not, it is true in case of Taimur and media. Since Taimur was born, news channels are head over heels for him. They want us to be updated with every small detail about him.


(Bonus: If you want to know how crazy they are for Taimur just do a google search * wink*)

The Best Question Which Needs To Be Answered

Our beloved journalists ask the finest questions and the questions which matters. Once during a flood in Kashmir, a mother lost her child. Our beloved journalist asked the question which mattered and everyone wanted to know it’s answer. He asked from the lady “You lost your child in flood, how are you feeling?” * slow claps * When I saw this for the first time I couldn’t really believe he asked that. I was flabbergasted. How can someone ask this kind of question, it’s totally bizarre and inhumane to ask someone. What did he expected to listen “I am very happy, I want to dance” ?

The Best Debate Organizers

News channels regularly organize debates among members of various political parties. They are nothing like the ones you saw(or participated) in your school. Here, candidates don’t have a fixed time to speak, they can interrupt in between other person and there is occasional shouting too but sadly most of the time is wasted in saying stuff like “listen to me”, “let me speak”, et cetera. The untitled king of debate organizer, Arnab Goswami6, is known for inviting people on his show and not letting them speak. He is also the man behind the famous phrase “the nation wants to know”.

Reaching The Heights Of Stupidity

This is a serious topic. With each day passing, journalists are getting dumber. In order to gain TRP, news channels have gone mad, they don’t even think about what they are telecasting even for a second. There have been numerous incidents when there was a terrorist attack is going and our beloved media in order to get TRP, telecast the attack live. This has been proved very dangerous for our special forces trying to counter-attack. Telecasting live is dangerous because it reveals sensitive data like from where our forces are entering the parameters, how many people are there, and sometimes they even show the weapons they are carrying. As it is live, the attackers can watch this news and create a counter plan. It has been proven fatal many times. Currently, there is a ban on live telecasting of such events.
Recently, Pakistani forces captured IAF’s wing commander Abhinandan Varthaman. During the questioning(the video one), we can see Pakistani officers asking him questions like where are you from, who else is in your family, etc to these questions replied “Sorry, I am not supposed to tell you” which is the exact thing he was supposed to say7(link for video in footnotes). While this was happening in Pakistan, our beloved journalists to show their patriotism decided to show all the details on national level. They showed us his home, his family members, his family background, etc. The details which our airman didn’t want to reveal, our media was telecasting nationwide. I came to know about this through a meme and the irony is that the meme was mocking the media for showing details whereas he himself was revealing the details.

Footnotes

  1. TRP: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-full-form-of-TRP
  2. Nana Patekar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nana_Patekar
  3. Tanushree Dutta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanushree_Dutta
  4. Read about the controversy: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/tanushree-duttas-fir-against-nana-patekar-what-happened-in-2008-1930447
  5. Taimur: Son of Indian actor Saif Ali Khan and actress Kareena Kapoor
  6. Arnab Goswami: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnab_Goswami
  7. Link of the video https://youtu.be/_OClgIDZZy4

Surreal

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