 |
| www.CWEB.com |
CWEB.com - There is no dearth of tragedies that befalls upon mankind. History has shown that nature is particularly uncharitable to developing nations. The April 2015 earthquake in Nepal is a case in point. The standard operating procedure for a natural calamity in the subcontinent is all too familiar and almost as per the playbook. Aid/Compensation announcement by the governing authority, followed by media sound bites, which has reached the abyss of obtuseness and almost borders on the blasé. The saving grace was the cheerful alacrity shown by the Indian government, as a response to the tragedy and aptly playing the role of ‘Big-brother’ in the subcontinent goes to drive home the concept of ‘Vasudhaiva" Kutumbakam’ which in English translates to ‘The world is one family’.
However, the overzealous need of the mainstream media to aggrandize in commoditizing and merchandising the genuine rescue efforts ended up almost derailing the mission. #GohomeIndianMedia as a riposte was long overdue and ironically had to come from a foreign land. Twitterati was on fire and was expectedly unabashed in proclaiming judgments and diktats. Mainstream media has lost no opportunity in condemning the very fabric of social media and the seemingly harsh and insensitive commentary by opinionated ‘high school reporters’ makes an average thinking Joe cringe with disgust. Delving deeper into the morass of journalism from the past, present, and future, begs an all-important question. Is mainstream media really any different from what they claim to be outraged against?
Let’s looks at historic facts. In the days of galore before the advent of social media, the mainstream media had a field day. The primary tasks in the novel profession of journalism involved the reporting of incidents and events for news in different sectors. This, for the most part, constituted 90% of the journalistic work. The remaining 10% was consumed by opinions related to those events. The 10% was reserved for the elite, for people who had experience on their side and so could make informed commentary and opinions aka liberals. This is not to say that the rest of the junta didn’t have opinions, however, those were relegated to highly animated discussions that happened in every street corner of the remotest parts of the country.
With the advent of 24x7 news channels, there was a sudden need for what I like to call as ‘content filling’ to fill the suddenly open space. It is an arduous task to ‘manufacture’ events for every hour of the day and to have sufficient viewership to drive up the TRPs. In turn, leads to spicing up of the events and 1000x magnification of daily events. Every event was observed with multiple microscopes to look at all possible angles and ‘explore’ all elements including the ‘human factor’. The spurt of news channels and 24x7 timelines resulted in the increasing of the 10% to much more than 50% in an attempt to hold audience captive in order to compete against real-time entertainment like movies etc. This created a demand for people who could analyze data and facts and give opinions, which were meant to be unprejudiced. Somewhere down the line, the quintessential component of factual reporting went for a toss and the opinions started reflecting mostly individual thoughts based upon individual life experiences and biases.
The ordinary coterie didn’t have much say, but to accept as gospel the bombardment of information as it was ‘shown on TV’. With social media, a new platform was created from where citizen journalists have started mushrooming. These citizen journalists have the same failings, as does social media, however, the field is more level playing than it ever has been. The war between mainstream media and social media is about the metamorphosis of the field and the reluctance of the old guard to yield terrain to journalism 3.0 and an animalistic need to combat evolution.
About the Author:
Featured Author Cwebnews
Kunal Bhattacharya Senior Manager, Application Security eBay
Kunai is a security expert with talent for shaping Bug Bounty programs, penetration testing and infrastructure development. Seventeen years of professional experience in Application Software development, design, test and Engineering Services. Organization builder, leadership developer, mentor and manager for local and cross-geographical teams to effectively deliver secure high-quality software products. Specialties: SPLC, Security Strategy, QE management, Product development, System Administration, DBA, Production Support, Escalation management, Organization development
No comments:
Post a Comment