Shashank's Musings

the fourth estate

The fouth estate playes an important part in the way the free society functions. Its responsible for the dissemination of information from the far corners to the farthest corners .It helps bridge the gap between the vast millions of a nation and indeed in todays world the global humanity . Despite the advent of different portals of propagation of news ,it has held its forte remarkably probably owing to the fondness with which its held by a vast majority who while accepting the new means still find justification to conserve and persist with the old ways.

I remember when i was in 6th grade and my father would encourage me to read the paper . Initially it was a bit daunting but my own natural curiosity and my father constant encouragement to read drove me into the habit of reading The Hindu . I have grown up with the paper becoming a part of my life. It had a very rigid and concise format. The news was always presented in a very precise manner which made reading for a beginner like me easy to start with . You always knew where to find your news; the front page carried the national news , the 2nd to 4th carried the local state news followed by other state's news , the international news and then opinions and finally the sports news .

Things always seemed simple back then .News was conveyed as it happened .It was an account of what happened rather than an account of what was perceived as to have happened. Journalists restricted their reports to relating the events and consigning their opionions to special write-ups which were published in the opinions section . People enjoyed their news reading and it was an important part of people's business.People were serious about the news and editors who managed these papers knew their responsibility was primarily to their readers; to present the happenings of the day in a succinct and honest manner above all else.

As all things in the course of time even the press has had to change , more papers are in circulation now alluding to wide variety of sections of public, they cove a wider range of issues and offer a wider repository of opinion. But along with changing times there has also been a sea change in the atitude . The empasis of the Editor has shifted from responsibility to the reader to responsibility to the shareholder. The paramount aim is to push up the circulation numbers and do all and everything to acheive the same . See , the focus has shifted . When you have an aim you work with that in mind ,towards it and for it . SO when the only aim is to push up the numbers, bring in the money your sensibilities change along with your targets.

So how do you acheive that ?

Well its easy to notice when you have a exclusive information regarding a burning issue of the day -that tends to push up your circulation.So exclusivity pays .So get exclusive , a dubious line added here , a rumour there , a punch line in between and well you have spiced the boring news everybody has - you've created a sensation- you are exclusive; oh you can give them the impression -create a facade u like, for sometime . Not too long though ,you have to replenesh it as people get bored of an issue after a certain time.

Cynicism and satire have taken the front seat . Everybody like the smart alec ;so give the people what they want .Who wants news as it is , give them as they will like it - racy ,paunchy and bitchy. Indeed this has a new term , tabloidism . Tabloidism where the lines between the occurence of events and the opinions of events gets blurred.A journalist's views , his private beleifs previously separate from his job of reporting increasingly creeping into his assesment of a event and the worst part such a style being accepted as the way forward.Infact give the guy a mass of baloney and if he's worth his tabloid salt he will turn it into an incredible yet credible story . The use of the ancient principles of rhetoric which Aristotle advocated have never been in such vast acceptance and application. The distortion of the thin red line between narration of an occurence and an assesment is now complete.A specail mention should be made of the western medai particularly the British and their American Media who must be credited for this discolourment- the indian media in past few years have been only too happy to follow.

Entertainment and Mass Media , today the latter has more and more assumed the role of the former also . Perhaps therein lies its greatest folly -purpose redefined , focus blurred , direction lost but then profits gained . Everybody happy ? I doubt it.

Shashank