News Channel !!!
(Written this sometime back, posting it now)
At the very outset I want to make it very clear that am apolitical by nature and the views expressed are my own.
Once upon a time the Sarakari Doordarshan happened to be the mouthpiece of the government. Whatever the government did or said was sacrosanct and speaking against it was blasphemous. And understandably so; for one you don’t bad-mouth the very source of your livelihood and secondly because we were still leading a curtained life under the heavy veil of socialist democracy. The advent of the “independent” Prasar Bharati was supposed to change things a bit but even though it’s been few years the Government run channel still retains the “Mouthpiece” epithet.
Personally though I don’t foresee that as being wrong. So be it. Even political parties have their mouthpiece notably “Ganashakti” daily brought out by the Reds in Bengal and force-sold to your drawing room if you stay in a Red-dominated neighborhood; And of course “Saamna” of Shiv Sena – whose articles are synonymous to war-cry.
The slew of news media channels of late promised to change all that. I just expected the views expressed in the news and its various programs to be unbiased and having a broad all-encompassing viewpoint.
Alas I had expected much too for nothing. News media was never clean and even though I believe sometimes a personal opinion based view point creeps up - nothing is wrong with that. But when you start a personal tirade against something or somebody over a prolonged period of time – you basically start questioning the intentions. After all the country did not need another mouthpiece of a political party guised as mass-media. Definitely not from the channel headed by one of the most respectable names in tele-journalism over the past decade and a half.
Yes am talking about a “recently” launched English news channel. (I use anonymous A &B as an example). I had written an earlier post regarding this just prior to the Gujrat elections. For some reason I could not sense the reason for the anti-Modi propaganda launched by the channel. It became an eye-sore reading the same views about how Modi had terrorized the state and how the only thing to happen in Gujrat was the Godhra tragedy and its aftermath. At that point I had felt that there was a strong anti-Modi sentiment that was being fuelled; but nearly six months after the elections when A still talks about Godhra and a polarized Gujrat, B talks about “militant nationalism” of RSS and VHP; it gets bigger than just a person. I seriously have a suspicion that this is paid Anti-Saffron campaign the channel is running. In his latest post A again talks about a six year old riot. Wake up, Sir and please look beyond that unfortunate episode. Being stuck in a time-wrap and speaking nonsense does not help you nor does it help us. And honorable B, please focus on certain other party for a change.
At the very outset I want to make it very clear that am apolitical by nature and the views expressed are my own.
Once upon a time the Sarakari Doordarshan happened to be the mouthpiece of the government. Whatever the government did or said was sacrosanct and speaking against it was blasphemous. And understandably so; for one you don’t bad-mouth the very source of your livelihood and secondly because we were still leading a curtained life under the heavy veil of socialist democracy. The advent of the “independent” Prasar Bharati was supposed to change things a bit but even though it’s been few years the Government run channel still retains the “Mouthpiece” epithet.
Personally though I don’t foresee that as being wrong. So be it. Even political parties have their mouthpiece notably “Ganashakti” daily brought out by the Reds in Bengal and force-sold to your drawing room if you stay in a Red-dominated neighborhood; And of course “Saamna” of Shiv Sena – whose articles are synonymous to war-cry.
The slew of news media channels of late promised to change all that. I just expected the views expressed in the news and its various programs to be unbiased and having a broad all-encompassing viewpoint.
Alas I had expected much too for nothing. News media was never clean and even though I believe sometimes a personal opinion based view point creeps up - nothing is wrong with that. But when you start a personal tirade against something or somebody over a prolonged period of time – you basically start questioning the intentions. After all the country did not need another mouthpiece of a political party guised as mass-media. Definitely not from the channel headed by one of the most respectable names in tele-journalism over the past decade and a half.
Yes am talking about a “recently” launched English news channel. (I use anonymous A &B as an example). I had written an earlier post regarding this just prior to the Gujrat elections. For some reason I could not sense the reason for the anti-Modi propaganda launched by the channel. It became an eye-sore reading the same views about how Modi had terrorized the state and how the only thing to happen in Gujrat was the Godhra tragedy and its aftermath. At that point I had felt that there was a strong anti-Modi sentiment that was being fuelled; but nearly six months after the elections when A still talks about Godhra and a polarized Gujrat, B talks about “militant nationalism” of RSS and VHP; it gets bigger than just a person. I seriously have a suspicion that this is paid Anti-Saffron campaign the channel is running. In his latest post A again talks about a six year old riot. Wake up, Sir and please look beyond that unfortunate episode. Being stuck in a time-wrap and speaking nonsense does not help you nor does it help us. And honorable B, please focus on certain other party for a change.
posted by shaun's world at
5:08 PM
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