In many ways we Indians do not deserve the freedom guaranteed to us by our constitution. While we boisterously take the freedom part for granted, we don’t try to even understand the responsibilities that come with that. I’m talking specifically about the private news networks which unnecessarily dramatize and exaggerate their presentations. The problem seems to be that sensationalism generates viewership and viewership generates revenues.
There are news programs exclusively dedicated to reporting ‘actual’ ghost stories. I mean actual NEWS channels which regularly broadcast a half hour segment on ghosts and witches with ‘documented’ facts. Many people who did not believe in demons before these programs now go for regular visits to witch doctors and exorcists because it is so much easier to blame supernatural powers for their own misfortunes. Then there are the bloody and graphic footages of accidents and crimes. These channels don’t even bother to blur out the excessively violent or gory sections. My elder daughter had started crying because a news channel was showing disturbing details of a woman whose husband, in a fit of rage, had jabbed an iron pike all the way through her head. They showed hi-res close-ups of her head.
The fact is that desensitized people tend to commit more crimes over issues which could have been otherwise resolved amicably. Is this what these channels are trying to achieve? They should just be reporting the news, not creating a nation full of people with no empathy. I also agree with regulations to curb unnecessary blood and violence in films, but this is worse. When people watch movies, they know its fiction but not so when they watch the news. I may be coming on here as someone against the freedom of the press. I am not. I am all for this freedom. It is essential in a democracy that the press be free to report the nature of the issues its covering. But there are limits. Someone sneaked a camera inside the bathroom wing of a women’s prison. These private news channels bloomed like maggots in meat and the footage was regularly aired. This is not sensible news reporting. The woman they were showing had to approach the Supreme Court of India to get a stay order to stop these broadcasts.
Heinous crimes like rape and murder are sensationalized daily through endless reenactments. All this does is lower the sensitivity of the people, the acts themselves desensitize impressionable minds. It is not necessary, while giving the news, to reenact the crime and dramatize the events. Simply stating the facts should suffice, that is what giving the news is about anyway. Many of these presenters act like the jury, judge and the executioner all rolled into one.
In any democracy the government represents the power of the people. And in the world’s largest democracy when the power of the people reacts, it does not split hair. It does not need to. It wipes the whole the whole thing out – body, head and hair. The private news channels should stop this blatant misuse of their freedom and think about the repercussions of their exaggerated programming on the innocent public. Granted, being private organizations, they need profits to survive but it should be done keeping in mind the gullibility and innocence of the people they are broadcasting for. Or the proposed regulations bill for cable channels will get passed in parliament and they will be left with barely enough finances to afford a single presenter holding a clipboard with handwritten notes to read from.
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