Media should be more responsible…..

Media hype on different issues, sometimes even before events occur, can really put you off your senses as it is such a potent medium of communication. Sometimes I feel that issues should not be blown out of proportion. It may wreak havoc even in places where peace would have been a certainty. Media can make a break a life. It may praise people unnecessarily and prevent them from sustaining brilliance; it may even rebuke innocent people and inflict permanent damage as well.

Before the Ayodhya verdict was declared a couple of days back, from almost a fortnight before that, there was such a huge anticipation that was created, that the government was forced to deploy even IAF choppers, leave alone the army and paramilitary forces in sensitive areas of the country. However, in Ayodhya itself, the ground situation was perfectly normal throughout. Just because of the media hype, schools, colleges and offices were forced to shut down for 48 hours. It was totally uncalled for.

Last year when the swine flu epidemic broke out in India, you could not open the newspaper or switch on a TV channel. They were spreading panic. You felt afraid even to touch your family members. When a source finally revealed the miniscular proportion of patients affected by swine flu compared to diseases like malaria and cholera, for which no panic is ever created among the public, you felt the redundancy of the entire exercise.

The CWG fiasco was blown out of proportion. It is true that the organizing committee did not conduct the preparations of the games well, but a blatant exposure of the shortcomings, printing pictures of filthy toilets may have been avoided. It just created a gloomy image of India globally. Issues could have been resolved internally. At the end of the day, the CWG 2010 would be held successfully anyway, but the media could have at least controlled some damage.

There have been so many instances throughout history where a bit more restraint by the media would have been so handy to prevent extreme unrest and inconvenience. Terrorists, who deserve nothing but whiplashes, get so much global attention just because of the media, but we forget birthdays of freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh and Jatin Das in the process, which is a shame. Hope that in the years to come, our media, which is so powerful, would show some responsibility as well, and use their influences constructively.