Breaking News..

Breaking News: Harry Potter lives on................
After months of excitement, this was possibly the least expected ending for my curiosity. For quite a time, I had avoided reading news concerning Potter series in the papers so as not to accidently step on to any speculations. But I just couldnt manage to avoid the news. All the channels were flooded with the news of the endings. Some of them had even got some speed readers so as to be the first one to tell the ending. It seemed that all the television world has been swooped by the wizard who survived.

Same kind of scenario could be witnessed when the millenium marriage of Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai took place. The news was everywhere. It seemed that all other news have dried up. No deaths, no disputes, no burglary, no politics. Only the Abhi-Ash marriage.

There was a time when I use to wait for the news at 8 (the times when I used to watch Doordarshan). All the happenings of the day put up succintly in half an hour. But slowly with the advent of 24 hours news channel, whole scenario changed up drastically. The whole journalism thing seems to lose up its motive. The only motive now is to grab more and more viewers anyhow in the cut-throat satellite television industry. Every news is tried to make sensational. No human touch left, everything is pure business. Griefs and miseries are shown but they are always attached with the tag of exclusive. And in this race of being exclusive, they have tried everything, sting operations(sometimes genuine and sometimes framed), shows showing fradulent sadhus being beaten up, crime reporters and so on. And in all this, they have even compromised their quality. The calm and poised Salma Sultan, Shammi Narang, Tejeshwar Singh have been replaced by the modern day theatrical heroes and heroines which could be seen confronting all the interviewees with the same cliche 'Kaisa lag raha hai aapko'. It doesnt make any difference whether they are interviewing a winning captain or an ailing widow. They are just professionals. They are no longer carrier of the public consensus. They are merely the informers.

But I wouldn't definitely take all the credits away from them. There have been times when they have stirred up public opinions for a socially good cause(like in Jessica Lal murder case). But more and more such initiaves need to be taken. They have to become a medium for carrying out the public discourse, a medium to carry voices of the individuals to the masses, a medium for providing unbiased information to the people. They are the pillars of democracy and they need to function well in order to keep the great democratic engine going.