The true essence of journalism has always been to bring the truth to the common man. With media coming in, many expected things to be more transparent. However, the arrival of the electronic media has exploited the very purpose of journalism and has redefined it into a proper commercial venture which revolves around making money and keeping the stakeholders happy. The reason for this discussion is due to the latest incidents and the irresponsible stand of the media folks.
The recent engagement ceremony of Ramcharan Tej with Upasana Kamineni was a star studded affair. As expected, the electronic media were thronging the place. Now, this was meant to be an exclusive coverage of the event. And exclusively means only for one channel but ironically, half a dozen channels were busy streaming the event and they called it exclusive. That is wrong. This goes to show that either they don’t know what the meaning of exclusive is or they simply don’t care.
Similarly, the no-confidence motion against the Kiran Kumar Reddy government by the opposition was being covered by the news channels in full swing last night. However, much to the surprise and shock of the viewers, each channel was seen coming up with their own numbers on how many are supporting the no-confidence and how many are not. Toggling between the channels showed the variation in numbers rather significantly.
TRP
While the examples are many, the bottomline looks clear. There is no responsibility for the media channels. For them, true or false don’t matter. What matters is viewers should not leave their channel at any cost and the TRP ratings must be maintained. Atleast, when some news is published in websites, it gives an option for people to decide and validate or report if something is incorrect. Amendments are made promptly but in electronic media, nothing works.
Maybe the event of Charan-Upasana engagement can be considered as not important but there are some serious issues the state is grappling with right now. If the news channels keep working as per their whims and behave irresponsibly by treating media as a business then the consequences would be severe for the society.
The recent engagement ceremony of Ramcharan Tej with Upasana Kamineni was a star studded affair. As expected, the electronic media were thronging the place. Now, this was meant to be an exclusive coverage of the event. And exclusively means only for one channel but ironically, half a dozen channels were busy streaming the event and they called it exclusive. That is wrong. This goes to show that either they don’t know what the meaning of exclusive is or they simply don’t care.
Similarly, the no-confidence motion against the Kiran Kumar Reddy government by the opposition was being covered by the news channels in full swing last night. However, much to the surprise and shock of the viewers, each channel was seen coming up with their own numbers on how many are supporting the no-confidence and how many are not. Toggling between the channels showed the variation in numbers rather significantly.
TRP
While the examples are many, the bottomline looks clear. There is no responsibility for the media channels. For them, true or false don’t matter. What matters is viewers should not leave their channel at any cost and the TRP ratings must be maintained. Atleast, when some news is published in websites, it gives an option for people to decide and validate or report if something is incorrect. Amendments are made promptly but in electronic media, nothing works.
Maybe the event of Charan-Upasana engagement can be considered as not important but there are some serious issues the state is grappling with right now. If the news channels keep working as per their whims and behave irresponsibly by treating media as a business then the consequences would be severe for the society.
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