Daily Post 1490
FROM MEDIA TRIAL TO MULTIMEDIA PRAJA PANCHAYA
We have been witnessing media trial going on for months together, prima donna being one channel and nearly all others following its iconic footsteps. The cases, investigation and the media kept on meandering through states, agencies and charges providing them full fodder for a couple of months to fill their coffers with the advertisers money. It should not be forgotten that is was not long that News of the World, owned by world’s biggest media magnate ever, had to wind up even with the last edition selling 8 million copies. All irregularities don’t have the same storyline as smarter individuals find newer ways to outsmart the system, creating newer paths to this nemesis.
From the Mumbai Police to AIIMS to literally every organisation and every individual who came in the midst of the media trial was bulldozed. The audacity to chase the investigators of different agencies / Govts & others connected to the case gave a feeling that all those were supposed to report to Republic and were duty bound to give information at it’s will. The name does not it any way provide extra-legal powers. We are all aware of the Praja Panchayat of the Naxalite days, the summary trial et al, this was its supposedly democratic urban country cousin of the digital age. A summary trial, extra constitutional, in a multimedia mode with all the theatrics and vitriolic, being beamed by the OB vans, digital mixes and what not.
It takes around a 1000 people to create what they do, but for the advertisers, its for whom, nobody knows. Moral custodians, the fourth estate, it claims. Today, from the Bihar elections to COVID-19 go nearly uncovered, no talk shows for sure of any other topic but themselves. Republic is the news on Republic these days. Sushant Singh Rajput case has lost its sheen, its has served its purpose. One ex. Police officer has already fallen flat on his face deriving benefits out of the unnecessary media glare created. The same TRP seems to going against the channel. Nobody knows why a battery of cattle fodder known as panelists, the ones who speak against the motion, come for the talk shows, to face indignity and shame on a regular basis. It should be boycotted outright. Human dignity is supreme.
Not denying that the TRP has become vexatious, the total lack of understanding of law, procedure, legal conduct and mixing vitiated common sense with legality by the channel will not last for long. The intemperate language, they way of addressing and the birds of feather panelists give us a feeling of well orchestrated outlandish operation. The ignorance and inflated egos are in full display. Might be our system has lost its teeth. He appeals to the Lordships from his TV studio. One panelist talks about the judgement coming later will not be justice as the channel and its owner would have already gone through the negative consequences; financial and otherwise. Is it the unsavoury pushing of the criminal justice system or emergence of a state within a state?
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION AND TRIAL CANNOT BECOME A SUSPECT’s PREROGATIVE.