Media Circus

For some time now, I have been feeling that Indian media is doing the same things which have screwed up US media. Now we have a case of 5 year old trapped in a 50 feet pit. The handling of this story closely resembles the 'Baby Jessica' episode. She was 18 months old when she fell in a pipe in 1987. The media circus made her story famous. The same thing is happening in India

also. All the news channels are covering this live. Chief Minister and other politicians are camping at the site to get some votes by showing there compassionate side. The state government and central government are going to give Rs. 200,000 each, to the kid.

There are too many issues here. The media circus is just the symptom of the problem.

The media doesn't have real news and they report on anything which will occupy airtime. The media latches on to any story with emotional or sensational content. It tries to pander to the audience baser instincts. Reporting these stories is easier and cheaper the doing an investigation on how Mumbai police screwed up before the latest blasts.

If this continue uncheck, we will reach the state of US media, which never asked the tough questions to Bush administration. They just jumped on the bandwagon for Afghan and Iraq war. Instead of the real issues, they focused on fluffy stuff. Instead of dying soldiers and civilians they focused on Michael Jackson and other such stupid stories.

The other problem this creates is that seeing the media frenzy politicians latch on to these non issues as this gives them easy media exposure. They take up issues which are not important and waste tax payer money by giving unwarranted compensations. In the current case, I can’t understand the logic of state and central government giving a total of Rs. 400,000 to the kid. If these politicians want to do something, they should prosecute the contractor who left the pit inadequately covered. But to garner some votes, these politicians are taking the quicker way out as it ensures that they can exploit current coverage. BTW, is Haryana Chief Minister so idle that he can leave everything and camp on a site where he can’t provide any help?

Last but not least, we as consumer encourage the media and politicians behavior. We feed this by giving more attention to these non-stories over real stories. Maybe it is because real news is not interesting to follow. Or it might because we don’t want to make an effort in understanding the issues. We have to change if we want to survive as a real and functional democracy. If we continue on the current path, we will become susceptible to easy manipulation by politicians and media.

Update: - Today’s Calvin and Hobbes sort of explain how we as a consumer are driving the process.