Media: Do they deserve our faith?

They say that a pen is such a powerful tool which can change the lives of millions in a single move. Here I am referring to pen as a symbol for media. If we go back in past by a decade, we have seen that media has played such an eminent role in shaping the framework of Indian society. There have been numerous instances where media has exposed scams, has reported hidden crimes and has also helped in galvanizing the Indian society to come forward and show some restraint to all the undesirable things existing in our society, hence gaining the faith of billions of Indians. We have seen in past that how media helped people to come out of their shells and fight for their rights, fight for the justice. Jessica Lal murder case, Anna Hazare’s movement, and Delhi Gang rape protests: all these movements have received unprecedented support from media. We believe in what we watch and what we read but every now and then we are made to think that whether if what we watch and what we read is the actual truth or it is something that’s being shown to us as per the part of an agenda. There is no denying that with great powers come great responsibilities and there has always been a question mark whether if media is using their powers for putting forward the truth or like in so many superhero movies, their powers are being mis-utilized by the media themselves or a group of powerful people. And yes, unfortunately here too there have been so many examples of media messing up with the issues and thus creating a false story or diverting the story from the truth. Every now and then media has been questioned on the grounds of favoring a group of people or intentionally downgrading some story or the other. Let’s take example of recent spot fixing fiasco in IPL. Right from the day 1 of this news being exposed, media in a quest to be sensational has created false impressions in the minds of people, thus diverting from their responsibility which comes in coordination with their power of mass appeal. They forget that in this quest to be sensational and different, they are putting the reputation of people on stake, completely forgetting that in case of their guesses proving to be false, the damage that will be done to those individuals will be beyond any repair. Not just this, this spot fixing thing has once again showed that how media can be biased towards a group of people. I am a die-hard fan of a leading website for cricket fans but one of their recent efforts at being responsible on this sensitive issue of spot fixing has really raised a question mark on them. Recently they blocked fans’ comments on some of their posts related to team Rajasthan and spot fixing in IPL because they wanted to discourage the improper comments but hey wait, where were they when whole world was shouting and cursing Pakistani players when Butt, Asif and Amir were exposed. Just because PCB doesn’t hold the same power in cricketing world as BCCI does makes PCB susceptible to criticism and a less sensitive subject?! This is one of those countless instances where media has made fun of trust of people and of their influence on the minds of their audience. I wish someday some news channel or newspaper will expose the ill-practices of Indian media. Amen!