Everybody loves to hate the media - and rightfully so

When we were in school, during the English composition class we were taught that while writing media reports, it was our duty to just report facts. And to report these facts without exaggeration. The other cardinal rule was a journalist wasn't supposed to express his opinions while reporting a story.

I presume they forgot to teach these rules to the news channels. Either that or the news channels consider themselves to not be providers of news but providers of sensationalism, hype and entertainment.

Case in the point, the recent grant of bail to Hafiz Sayeed in Pakistan. While reporting this, BBC(the only yardstick for non sensational news repoting left) flashed, "Lahore High court grants bail to head of Pakistani charity suspected of helping the accused involved in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks" Reporting on the same issue Times Now flashed, "Remorseless Pakistan relases 26/11 mastermind." The other Indian English news channels followed a somewhat similiar rhetoric, just the treatment was less harsh. They would have variants of Pakistan releasing terror mastermind flashing on their respective screens. No mention of him being an alleged or accused mastermind. Just plain and simple mastermind. A claim which I think not even the Indian government made. The mastermind according to them was Lakhvi. And obviously the fact that the Pakistani government saw it as a loss in the court, and was going to appeal did't bother them. It was Pakistan and not the Lahore High court which released, not granted bail, to Hafiz Sayeed. I think, only NDTV which had the least harsh of the Indian narrative on this story, featured all these facts, but they also viewed all these facts with a skeptical and condescending tone towards Pakistan.

Another case in the point, the circus they have created out of Australia. Makes me think Ellsworth Toohey would have been extremely proud. I am so certain that between any two Indians being attacked and robbed, there would have been many more other Australians of different ethnicities being attacked. But that won't make a great story back home. The media created such a narrative that the Indian prime minister spoke to his Aussie counterpart on almost a non-issue converting it into an international problem. Emboldened by all this media hype, the Indian students are now protesting, sometimes turnig violent, and creating more fodder for Times Now, CNN iBN et al to have a field day.

The general elections were peppered with many such examples. Nitish Kumar around the time results were to be declared was posturing a bit. He made a statement that we are with anyone who provides Bihar with a special status. The comment was made at a function when he also suggested that the Public Distribution System was in shambles, and instead of providing subsidy in the form of cheaper goods, the government could provide everyone with some sort of credit card which can be given a monthly credit of the amount that is spent on subsidy anyway. And the people could then use this to buy goods from the market. Now, Arnab Goswami, who should technically be just reporting this, and leave the analysis to the viewer, gave his brilliant views. "Nitish wants special status for Bihar. He wants cash to be given instead of goods via the PDS. Very simply put, he is leaving the NDA." I have no clue how he came to that conclusion, but he did.

The "experts" that these channels call are even funnier. They are called to give their opinions but some of them seriously make you want to laugh. Especially if its about our poor neighbours, Pakistan or from our poor neighbours. The Indian experts without fail will have a condescending and extreemely narrow view of Pakistan and Pakistanis whereby the Pakistani army has only one job and that is to hurt India, and the pakistani government is a puupet controlled by the army and almost any terror happening in India is because of the ISI. This could be fact, but the way the experts talk makes it sound only like propaganda. The best would be when a Pakistani experts speaks a little sanely. I hear one Indian "expert" say in an extremely condescending tone, Mr. X, you seem to be a moderate andPakistani, but I think what you say is wrong. I mean that almost assumes everyone else in Pakistan is an extremist.

The view from the other side is equally bad. All Pakistani experts will believe that most accused terrorists from Pakistan are innocent and almost everything happening in Pakistan is because of R&AW. Somthing that could well be true, but listening to the experts it only sounds like something one could laugh along with.

Sometimes I feel the only news that is worth watching come on 'The week that wasn't" or delivered by the puppets of NDTV. At least they don't wear a facade of seriousness and self importance.

But i guess the news channels need to catch eyeballs if they want to survive. And to catch eyeballs they will have to in most cases give standards a goodbye kiss. More people will watch when an Indian and Pakistani fight egged on by the journalist rather than some drab ssounding people stating facts and analysing it objectively!