Sunday, June 18, 2017

Why We need only two news bulletins a day?

I am a self-confessed news junkie!!

I started with hating news at a very young age, as news time meant no other TV programs. Dad insisted on watching it from the beginning to the very end, revising the headlines. Those were the days of 20 minutes of structured news bulletin starting and ending with headlines; featuring twice, once in Hindi and the other time in English. The news readers dressed formally, stared into the camera and read from the prompter with a very straight face. Dad as a middle class man with finite means and influence felt the genuine need to know the bigger picture. 

Soon his interest and need rubbed on us, me and my sister. Our young minds started finding the news as captivating, intriguing and thought provoking. It was stranger than fiction, the quest for truth and justice, conspiracy theories, corruption, power, politics, foreign policies… we followed Dad's interest in it. People often noticed and complimented our knowledge of news worthy events. 

We were very excited at the onset of cable TV as news became more interesting. The monotone was replaced by analysis and discussion and investigative journalism where the quest for truth became a little more intense and a little more dramatic. But it was mainly marked by our new found role models; smart, intelligent, confident TV journalist who oozed passion and conviction …. came across as good Samaritans. The khadi kurta’s, rolled up sleeves of pin striped shirts, the enunciated appeals, the visits to far reaching villages or war zones, the discovery of unknown statistics, the analysis panels and hard hitting questions to and from social activists were embraced by us with awe and love.

But as common wisdom goes, everything is good in moderation.

Soon news channels were 24X7. And many more in number. More reports, more repetition of news, more not-so-true news, more of over the top discussion panels, more non-breaking breaking news, more repeated shots of news crew shoving camera in the face of grieving parent/celebrity/undertrial, more Bollywood gossips.

The Indian news casters and journalists tried to strive for a bigger role, as celebrities and political supporters The discussion panel became more dramatized and chaotic much like facts and news. They try to make fashion statements. Many were seen by rubbing shoulder with politicians while standing with and behind them; making a personal profit from their professional influence. 

At this point I moved to US. The media here is sinister in its sincerity.

You can believe in anything and there will be a newspaper/news channel to say how you are right and more importantly those who do not believe in your belief are wrong. You can believe your neighbor is an alien, dinosaurs still exist, bigfoot reads newspapers, unicorns can rap. And there will be a “news” medium to verify and validate it while shaming the non-believers.

Same news and opinions are badgered. Mistakes/gaffes/typos are highlighted till they get set in stone. People with different opinions are showcased so they can be mocked. Attention grabbing headlines are first engineered, then analyzed, then repeated till they provoke a reaction… then the reaction becomes the next headline.

Left, right, center!! All kinds of opinions color the newspapers/podcasts/news sites/new TV channels. They viciously attack and demonize the “others”. The newspapers/channels/website sale has been miraculously revived. I myself read several newspapers but the bigger picture that my dad sought and found is made blurry for me by the large number of sources of constant news, business of profiting from news, propagation of opinions, advice on how I should think and the assurances that “I am right”. 

Sunday, January 22, 2017

The carnage of Social Media

Nowadays, the need to take sick time off from work is specially excruciating because of the absence of the endearing crutches of the social media.

Once upon a time you could swift through the sweet, non-abrasive, non-political updates and pictures posted by your friends, very safely. Remember, the good times when the worst thing about Facebook was friends showing off the cakes, cars, kid's crafts and nausea inducing PDA.

As thinking individuals, we cannot escape forming opinions. As social beings, we can’t stop ourselves from sharing our opinions. But conversations and josh and smart-ass sarcasm have been replaced with a lot of nastiness. You come across a lot of name calling, insulting meme, a lot of aggression and propagation of one’s own ideology with no respect of others.

The age old wisdom of "don't say anything if you have nothing kind to say" have been thrown out of the window. 

A lot of friends seem uncomfortable. Some threaten to leave Facebook while others invite friends with differing opinions to unfriend them; Some maintain a balance trying to showcase their life/updates/check-ins along with their opinions, some others pretend to miss the new-age-social-media-activism while others have anointed their ideology, prepared a game plan and are set to convert all who disagrees with them... though meanness.

It’s not a complain. I am not requesting helpful tips. It’s a documentation of an observation on how disturbing it is to see the people you respect, disrespecting others; propagating a very unnecessary commotion outside the immediate working of democracy; yet the urgency you feel to express yourself in response to some of the appalling information that threaten to rollback the progress we made as free and civil society.

I wonder if the level of nastiness would have been the same if people had to write their opinion/news/fake news/articles/memes in their own words instead of sharing what seems to be coming from “professional bullies”

We adapt to our environment and this may be the new face of it. May be new social media friend/follow requests will accompany have a sequence of ideology questions to guarantee a rather “happy experience”.

Twitter believe me, is much kinder to me. May be I find respite in sharp perspectives, cleaner words, less attachments or just the comfort of reading from and writing to strangers. Instagram is heaven.


Before I end, thank you to all who show constraint and thank you to all others who don’t. The former group inspires and  guides while the later can always be ignored. This is indeed a very "First World Problem".