Posted on September 4, 2008 - by rdilipk1

Media Coverage – How much Justified?

Since the day media has been given complete freedom to report, news channels have cropped up like mushrooms. But are these channels doing justice to their responsibilities?

When I hear the term, “Media”, the first thing that comes to my mind is a news reporter interviewing a helpless calamity affected villager, asking him all the useless questions that one would never even have imagined.

Since the time media has been given complete autonomy, we have forgotten the good old days of the news-reader reading out the news from his news-room occasionally going to the correspondent who would be as short and precise as possible. These days it is the correspondent who takes more time than the news-reader. News channels have cropped up like the mushrooms that crop up during monsoons. With the increasing number of channels the quality of news has dropped.

When you surf to a news channel to see what is the latest news, this is not what you actually get to see. What you would find is crappy gossips of third rate television soaps and movie stars and not to forget unending commercials. You would feel as if the real programme is the commercial.

If at all there is a news coverage that you come across, what you see is ridiculous correspondents covering important news in such a way that the importance of the news itself is lost. How can a correspondent ask a flood affected villager, “How he was feeling”?

The definition of  breaking news has changed. For these news channels, even a news that the city police commissioner was suffering from Influenza, is a breaking news. With all these commercialization, are these news channels doing justice to news coverage. Your answer is as good as mine.