North . East . West . South

Since the times of Narad Muni hopping from one god to another in Swarga-lok, to Julius Reuters flying pigeons carrying stock quotes between London and Paris, to today's lightning fast electronic media; news has traversed an interesting journey. The only thing that has remained constant during this journey is the importance that it commands (rather that too has increased! ). It wouldn't be a hyperbole to say that news can make or break empires.

We as the children of LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization, not the one used in kitchen! ) have been a witness to the shrinking world and the ever increasing necessity of news in our lives. Where once it was enough to know "what's happening next door", today events across seven seas can effect the way we live. I particularly remember that till the late nineties, news for me meant, a half an hour bulletin broadcasted by Doordarshan at 8:30 p.m. Often, before the bulletin began there was this digital clock, with seconds ticking, displayed over the TV screen which was a mode of matching our clocks. Of course times have changes and 24X7 hour news channels have taken over. The process I guess started with the Gulf War of the nineties when some charismatic news reporters reported live from the battle ground showing exemplary courage. The world wide publicity combined with a well-connected world (thanks to LPG again) paved the way for all time & all season news channels.  It was a welcome phenomenon, since one could switch on the television set at any time to be abreast with the world. Even it came to be argued that the news-papers will die a slow death. Thankfully that has not happened and they have survived the times of change by adapting beautifully.

But not everything has been beautiful ever since. As they say excess of everything is bad, the presence of several players in the news industry has triggered a dog eat dog kind of competition and levels of honest reporting have gone down drastically. The race against resources to maintain the viewership has forced news channels to present concocted news and the phenomenon of paid-news has taken deep roots. In some cases the ethics have been completely pushed aside in favor of what has come to be known as masala-news. Many channels have stooped down to pitiable levels whereby they tend to increase TRP's by creating (yes,  i mean creating) scintillating and panic driven news such as that of end-of-the-world and aliens'-visits. However, people have learnt to take such news in a lighter vein but then who knows if we will face the same fate as the boy who cried wolf. 

Recently, when I read that in UP and Bihar convicted criminals (with a few murders each and prize money on their heads) bought full page news-paper advertisement to convey Independence day greetings (they might be looking at the elections around the corner! Already, a few of their brethren are negotiating with the political leaders), I was literally appalled. The immediate solution that came to mind was about some kind of regulation but then I myself rejected the idea as it breaches the sacredness of the freedom of press. More heinous crimes have been committed in countries where the press is bound (watch "Lives of others" - an interesting movie regarding freedom of press). So, what is the way out  - well that's a million dollar question, probably, an attitudinal transformation is the need of the hour or may be the right kind of public participation or may be something else. There are no easy answers to this question but atleast we must start thinking about it. Many a times societal values / thought have brought about a revolution, here in this case we need much less!