Daily Post 1474
MEDIA – OF, FOR & BY THE MEDIA
Media is of the media, for the media and by the media, which we are forced to experience on day to day basis. The same way voters decide their own fate, viewers and readers decide what they want to see and read. Did the readers indicate to the newspaper houses to hide even the first page of the newspapers in the midst of the current degraded variant of yellow pages – ads, ads and only ads. COVID-19 in a way helped in giving them a healthy burial, which they seem to resist. They are begging to be read. In might not be a tool of infection, but what is there to read. The circulation figures have their own story. The authenticity would always be in question, the parameters, the methodology et al.
Life moved from the print media to the electronic media and in fits and starts with ever burgeoning technology enabling reach to near ubiquitous level. Technology made it multimedia – catchy and gave it pace and spread which can be termed only as mind boggling. Today, they not only rule the digital signals, they rule our heart and mind. With the cocktail of social media nobody knows how the less educated and more vulnerable sections are impacted. The once silent famed editors of yesteryears, professionally competent with objective and cogent expressions gave way to the anchors of today. The anchors gained in prominence and editors started becoming anchors. Presently, the main anchor and the editor in chief and is one and the same person. What does he edit and for whom, nobody knows?
The slant, bias or the trajectory of each one of them is known, the main anchor and the channel, still they unabashedly keep running their money minting machines. TRP type tools are put in place to legalise and validate their presence and their spread and give an open invite to the advertisers to be a part of the presumed party. Where is the viewer in this ecosystem? A hapless creature. Who has taken his views? Why is the TRP mechanism not known to the world, as that decides what we view and which anchor we have sold our mind to? Who decides what should not be aired? Is their any timeline for any topic? Who all qualify to air their views? What has been the impact on the general viewer and the next generation?
Has there been a single poll to find out what viewer wants? What are the reasons for which they feel that they get away with whatever they do? Law and propriety both don’t apply. Besides the advertising money, the power of the channel and the main anchor is what success stories are made of. It does end here. The fourth estate who are there to safeguard and empower all of us draws salaries which can put the corporate high fliers to shame. Till today no channel has mourned the death of more than one lakh Indians, who have died in this pandemic. A more responsible role of the media could have helped in saving some of them. They are in a permanent battle with each other and everything they come across, that is the business model. This acrimony will not end with them, it will eat us all. The crop will not survive, if the fence decides to eat it.
MEDIA BATTLEFIELD HAS FINALLY EMBROILED US ALL.