I cannot but get this itch off my fingers until I put it down:
The media's world is all but the lens of the camera! I have two very glaring examples for this from the recent news coverage of the various English channels. I know I'm not saying anything new here but all the same I needed to say, at least for myself.
The first one is about the way we perceive life, or let me be more specific, the way the media wants us to perceive life, because it is primarily the way it (those who wield the camera or the ones who handle the camera) perceive life. Life is more a ball-game (literally) than a matter of life and death or survival in its most crude form. Most news channels have only the spot-fixing and BCCI chief's stance to report, discuss, debate and present exclusives about. Just before this whole thing was snowballed in our faces, there was one single attack that took place just for a couple of hours in which lives were lost, the Chattisgarh attack by the Naxals. And guess which event gets priority? The latter is dead and buried (history that never happened), while the former is all that is happening (history in the making)!
Even in the reporting of the event in Chattisgarh, there is the same shrunk world-view (camera lens). Days before the attack on the Congress yatra, about eight tribals were gunned down by the CRPF in what has been now reported as a 'raid'. Nothing of this ever came to light when the incident happened, nor was it the focus of discussion or even mention besides a 4 minute retrospective news by one of the news channels. Now why did the attack on the Congress brigade get all the attention? Because not 8 but 24 died? Not at all, but because political bigwigs were the ones targetted, not tribals!
The camera lens can not only zoom in and out on one point, it can also pan and tilt! Moreover it can even be shifted to a different locale anytime because history is in the making, anytime, all the time.
The media's world is all but the lens of the camera! I have two very glaring examples for this from the recent news coverage of the various English channels. I know I'm not saying anything new here but all the same I needed to say, at least for myself.
Even in the reporting of the event in Chattisgarh, there is the same shrunk world-view (camera lens). Days before the attack on the Congress yatra, about eight tribals were gunned down by the CRPF in what has been now reported as a 'raid'. Nothing of this ever came to light when the incident happened, nor was it the focus of discussion or even mention besides a 4 minute retrospective news by one of the news channels. Now why did the attack on the Congress brigade get all the attention? Because not 8 but 24 died? Not at all, but because political bigwigs were the ones targetted, not tribals!
The camera lens can not only zoom in and out on one point, it can also pan and tilt! Moreover it can even be shifted to a different locale anytime because history is in the making, anytime, all the time.
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