#102 What A Shame, is it India's Worst or Best 'Upcoming Asset'?

What am I talkin about? Mmmmm perhaps the media. Its come a distance today. Real big distance.
Yes, when we bought our first television set back then in 1985, I hardly knew anything around me, though when we purchased a brand new Videocon in 1989, that was the time when I actually knew things happening around me. That was the time when we used to sit down every evening to watch the Doordarshan National News being broadcast every evening. It was still the time when the Doordarshan was the only information provider on the television. We would sit every Sunday morning with the whole family, breakfast ready on our laps and the set switched on. We would all sit together and watch the epics Mahabharat and Ramayan. Those were some days.
Then came the years of the next decade beginning 1990. Cable television was being introduced into India. Zee television is perhaps the first "channel" I remember as far as my memory takes me. A few programmes used to be broadcast on a "weekly" basis. Note the emphasis on "weekly". On other days they were simply repeated. Star television forwarded its business in India and began broadcasting hit soaps such as The Bold and The Beautiful and Santa Barbara. Once again we used to sit down on the Sundays in the morning with our breakfast, but this time note, it were just Us KIDS! We used to relish the comic series and cartoons put up on it. Especially I remember Jungle Book and Disney World. Slowly and steadily, the number of "channels" increased to something like thirty to forty by the end of 1995. By 1998, there were already hundreds, mind it hundreds of national and international "channels", regional channels and local channels being broadcast on the TV set. From "weekly", soaps started giving a "daily" broadcast. Daily - 5 days a week, and some even 7 days a week. People began gluing up to the television set. Children and middle aged children around less than 15 yrs of age, tuned into Cartoon Network, slightly elder teens to the pre-twenties guys and gals tuned into MTV and Channel V, even elder people hooked on to Star Movies, from there on to the very elderly tuned into the standards soaps and serials on Star and Zee and Sony Televisions. Some more technically oriented people loved the Discovery Channel. There were channels that came up dedicated to 24 hr Music, Movies, News, Soaps, Sports, and to that matter even Telemarketing and dedicated channels for Science and Technology, know how of the world, and even Jokes all
day long!!
Today, circa 2006, we are able to watch any channel from around the globe, any nation, any language, even the same channel in different local languages. Today we have tens of channels dedicated to news, dedicated to music, movies, cartoons, sports and everything under the sun.
But I am here talkin about the News channels in particular.
The problem with them is that they show everything happening around you. Everything! You wont miss out on any any any thing! What your politicians are eating in their breakfast to what is the condition of the nearest public toilet! Its so fast that while you are still watching the most recent Himesh Reshamiya headbanging absolute shit score on MTV, your brother staying in a city hundreds of kilometers away, calls you up and asks you "whats going wrong in your town thats being shown on the news?" Being in the very city and you yet dont know whats going on outside your home. Yes I agree, the media and news channels have penetrated deep into the fabric of our daily systems and can reach a spot even before the news reaches a mile beyond. Infact, in places of accidents, media reaches even before an ambulance or the police can reach the place. Good Enough! They help unite people. They help people in communicating to near and dear ones far away when the other systems have given way. Yes they do help out in everything. And they even help in creating a big big panic amongst the people. Take for instance this years rains. It was just another years rain that falls every year. Yes last years flash flood was extraordinary. But this years was a pretty normal rain. But the news cahnnels broadcast it as if dotn know how much it has rained and how many difficulty the people are facing around everywhere. It was shit bad, I mean the coverage. I was just standing on the railway platform waiting to enter the train that came on the platform. It halts for just 20 seconds. Scores of people tried to enter the compartment as happens generally, but one idiot mediaman, with his camera and all modern equipments, wanted to capture that particular drama and joined in the fray to board the train. Only to people standing outside could it be realised the amount of inconvinience caused by that asshole.
The media maybe right, in covering events, and governments actions, and ministers trips, but does it do anything good to us? It did cover everything about the Reservation Chaos in India, it covered student rallies, it interviewed every minister, it took peoples polls. What else? It did nothing to tell people what was right! It did nothing to make the government realise the facts. It did nothing to cover the vent in the positive light. Nothing. The country is goin to bad hands and the media just covers it in limelight "BREAKING NEWS". Fcuk, break their heads with their own cameras.
Its just about ratings, something like a vote bank that I wonder will lead to anything good for these media channels. Of course they are operated by the same politicians. They are BIASED! Its no point now taking any other instances, but the most recent one was the saking of the Director of AIIMS, and it was just a petition by HC or perhaps SC, that the govt had to take back its decision. The media, just creates HYPE AND PANIC. They bloody cant do anything else!

Oh I forgot to add, a few ladies that appear on those channels, Shereen Bhan, Anubha Bhosle, Devika Anand, Sonali Chander and a few others looks damn sexy!! Especially the ones on CNBC. And thats one reason I watch those channels!! :P