A few days back we had the Russian president visiting our campus. His visit happened to be at the same time as our college's cultural festival. Were they related? Nah, not a chance. So when a news article by a "journalist" who is attached to our college it seems, reads like this "Medvedev is visiting IIT-B during Mood Indigo, its annual cultural festival.", what do you infer?
This is not even the tip of the iceberg. The session with the president, which I happened to attend, was peppered with rather insolent questions which smacked more of showmanship than genuine curiosity and understanding. Yet, it was an innocent little session with a couple of hundred college students and a few greyheaded professors. Had you been watching the news later in the evening or reading the following day's papers, you would be forgiven for assuming that he made bold political statements from the pulpit as opposed to mere clarifications to infantile queries. This got me thinking about the whole process of conveying information which the media supposedly does.
I, like millions of people of my generation who like to keep themselves abreast of daily happenings, have been brought up on newspapers and encyclopediae. Our kids are told that reading newspapers is a good thing and, naturally, we tend to assume that whatever we read is true. Why should it be otherwise? Aren't reporters out there to seek out the truth? Do they not have ethics? Aren't editors the torchbearers of civil society and the conscience of the government? As I've learned the hard way, they aren't. Look at the Niira Radia controversy. More importantly, look at the way things have been covered up by the mainstream media. No discussion, no self-regulation, no brandishing of the book of ethics. Vir Sanghvi, thankfully, has had the shame to stop writing Counterpoint every Sunday. Barkha Dutt has continued unabashedly on her TV channel with her self-righteous bitchiness.
All of this tends to make you rather cynical of your own knowledge of the world. After all, we've hardly ever been in a crisis situation (most of us) and even if we have been, there has been no possible way for us to know that situation from a holistic perspective. We have to rely on our newspapers for that. The newspapers and the media in general, though, makes you very cynical and negative about what it tells you. You realise that there is a difference between what happens and what gets reported. It's like a child discovering that all the gifts he thought Santa'd put there for him, are actually being put there, stealthily, by his parents.
Ah! Attended Moodi in 2009. I remember getting lost in the campus so often! :)
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, we tend to attach importance to anything written in print esp the newspapers and rarely figuring out that we end up being fed with skewed facts.
I read that piece of news in the Times and I spent around three minutes wondering how the Mood Indigo people had managed to generate enuff pull to fly in Presidents of entire nations for the fest. :D
ReplyDeleteThen, I guessed it was probably just that Medvedev happened to have decided to come and interact with students, much like Obama turned up in the Xavier's grounds..except he'd chosen to come up at a rather festive time. The way it was written was very suggestive of the former tho', and that can probably be put down to the poor writing skills of some random newbie journo who clearly hadnt taken English comprehension passages seriously in school.
And the Radia tapes just make one wonder, exactly Who can we trust? Not Barkha Dutt and her ilk. And Wikileaks? There are some colourful conspiracy about those guys, too.
Say, the bloggers and vloggers and assorted Anonymous folk on the internet try to act as a watchdog for the fourth estate. Then, it's that old question again. Who watches the watchmen?
And, I'm curious. What was Medvedev asked that was so infantile?
@Priyanka
ReplyDeleteYeah, reading newspapers has always been one of those "good habits". No wonder we trust what they write.
@TUIB
This female (I refuse to call her a journalist) has been covering IIT news for a few years now and she does this quite often.
I doubt if you could have something as a "watchman" in this case. It has to stop at a push-pull equilibrium between two or more forces that claim to represent the truth. It isn't foolproof, but it'd be much better I'm sure.
On the infantile question bit, a guy stood up and asked him ,"Sir, when will there be democracy in Russia?" It was so embarrassing. Neighbour se naa pooche koi ki aapke ghar mein shor kyon hota hai itna and this dufus put such a question to the president of another nation, who also happens to be a guest in our country. I was looking for a place to hide my face!