Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Taking Sides.

Why does the media have to take sides so as to make an issue sensationalist ? One one hand, we have some bare facts which are boring and (yawn) uninteresting...on the other hand, if one uses a lens and looks at it from another angle, then voila! its news ! More copies of the newspapers sell and the journalists get more recognition...doesn't matter if this entirely lopsides view of the issue hurts a cause, some individuals, or humanity as a whole !

Take the report on the recent incident in Kashmir - the shooting of teenage boys, mistaken for "terrorists" ! Agreed that this is a tragedy and nothing that the army or the security forces can say will allay the grief of the relatives and friends. But the aforementioned article, in one of the most respected news agencies in the world, Reuters, just shows how biased reporting can hide true facts, just to be more sensationalistic. The report talks about a genocide of "innocent Kashmiris"...hmmm...but what about the silent genocide that has been going on in Kashmir for the last few decades ? Watch this video for more details on that...the news media for some reason, seems to ignore these facts !

Are there no ethics, no morals, no honour left among the mass media ? Is the hunger for recognition and baseline economics of number of copies sold or viewers attracted more inportant than the truth or the bare facts ? Is plain, old-fashioned vanilla flavoured jounralism at an end ? In the interest of the future of the world and society as a whole, let us hope not !

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