Today's Media

The role of media is to convey messages and opinions expressed by particular individuals or organizations to a mass of people. Therefore, for any democratic country, it is necessary that media does a good job in focussing on correct issues and giving right level of value & importance as the subject at hand demands. After all media can become an important tool in educating the people of the country in th right direction.

There are different types of media available these days with journalism and television reports playing a major role. Numerous leading newspapers and popular TV news channels are being set up these days and all of them require NEWS. As a result, any person who gets slightly famous because of his achievements or activities is bound to find his mention in the newspapers or in the flying headlines of the TV. I remember when I used to play table tennis in my school days, very few newspapers felt the need to cover the TT tournament. Now after a few years, I have observed that every newspaper attempts to cover the local sports events. In fact some of them have a separate edition for such sports coverage. This has been a good change, since then the image of all kinds of sports has been lifted and people's mindset has become more open to allow their children to play different kinds of sports.

People are now even aware of the latest products that touch the market and are educated on various social, cultural and medical fronts. The TV media (advertisements and news) forms an important source of information to know what is happening outside our pretty world. The news channels are continuously updating on stock market analysis (ups and downs) as well as the "flash news" which narrate on the current happenings (so that people don't have to wait for the next day's newspaper). The TV news channels addressed the recent event of "Mumbai Blasts" in an excellent manner. The media advertised a helpline toll free number so that people could enquire the whereabouts of their friends and relatives which otherwise was impossible since all the telephone lines were jammed. Even on entertainment front, TV is undoubtedly at its best through its different programs. All these factors reflect the brighter side of today's media.

But if you peep on to the darker side, one can see a certain level of ambiguity and skewness in the absolute truth of the reports due to heavy competition in private sector. Everybody is into the business of minting money thereby making the story look bigger than the fact themselves and totally forgetting or rather ignoring the actual responsibility of the media towards the people. I wonder whether there is a need for all the events or happenings to be broadcasted by the media as I partially believe the age-old saying "Ignorance is a Bliss". Sometimes unnecessary or irrelevant information given by the media causes lot of problems to the society indirectly. Nevertheless, there are some sincere souls in this media world who win their bread by collecting and reporting information. I deeply appreciate such people since they have a tough job to do by working at odd hours and have to be alert whenever and wherever something happens irrespective of their liking.

Finally to conclude, I would say that it is upto the audience how to receive the media (take what you want and leave the rest). They need to be intelligent enough to pick up the correct or absolute meaning of any information reported. This could be possible for educated urban people, but what about the rural people in small cities and villages. That question still needs to answered. What do you feel ?