Tuesday, August 17, 2010
kudos!... the commonwealth men and women
Since the day India won the bid to host the 2010 Commonwealth games, media has been in a frenzy! But it crossed all borders this year - the year when India is set to host its BIGGEST event so far. There has been one horror story after the other.......corruption, blah, blah and more blah blah! Yes it is the role of media to bring to light malpractices in the system, but to write and report only about expose is not journalism! Somewhere, somehow the Indian media has assumed that digging into the dirty boxes of politicians and bureaucrats is true journalism. But I beg to differ. Journalism is about presenting the good and the bad equally. I am sure there are enough good stories about the CW games. There must be umpteen number of men and women who have worked hard, working hard and will work hard to make the games a success. Has even one publication or news agency bothered to write about that! Harping on the negative all the time only brings bad name to the nation. It is this one-sided reporting of Indian media that has given the rest of the world a reason to point finger at us! It is a shame that such a big industry, full of some very creative and respectable people, cannot write one positive thing about an event that means so much for the country! I am sure that no matter how successful the games are, media will still find many holes in the success story and highlight them. But may I please request you to, for some time, look at the positives and cheer the magnificent efforts of the many people who have got us this far! Journalism is for the citizens and for once you can do us a favor by talking about some extraordinary citizens..
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I totally agree with you Manya .This has disturbed me too sometimes.With media being aired globally now ,they need to act more responsibly in selecting what they are telecasting. Anything against national interest should be dealt with more sensitivity. Remember the live telecast media gave of the Taj Hotel,Mumbai attack which later was disclosed was actually helping the terrorists to know the whereabouts of the police and commandos! I as a common citizen was shocked to see and could think that this live telecast could actually help the terrorists, I wonder how the media people couldn't have such a basic common sense.
ReplyDeleteYou are right Jaya. That was a media disaster by all means!!The media is living in a bubble right now and it is waiting to burst!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe last few days, I have been looking to find a nice gallery of images of the Commonwealth games venue. The only images that keep turning up are the few dirty sinks and the construction. If we can't showcase and market our games, we obviously can't expect to spread a message of success. This post is becoming so much more relevant given the negative frenzy in the last few days. I truly hope we can turn around and showcase the good work as well. Well written post.
ReplyDeleteThough I read the post today only, well after the Commonwealth Games, the thoughts put up by you are exactly what I had in mind in the lead up to the Commonwealth Games. The media really made a mockery of the Games by bringing them to news for all the wrong reasons. Sure, there was corruption, there were wrong doings on the part of the officials, but then where in the world is there no corruption and everything is perfect? This is not to say that Corruption is to be accepted. Yes it has to be looked at seriously, but just highlighting corruption in the lead up to the Games is a classic example of dooming the Games, before they start, forming a pre-determined image in minds of people around the world that these Games are going to be a disaster and so on.. It does hurt at times to see media reporting these things and bringing disrepute to the nation..
ReplyDeleteI agree Vyom. It is a sad state of media affairs right now.
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