Television through the years

Why is it that the entire main stream media went gaga over Anna Hazare's reality show at Ramlila Grounds when it chose to ignore Baba Ramdev's show on 27 Feb 11, at the same venue ? Baba Ramdev's show was attended by Anna Hazare , among other stalwarts, and had drawn much larger crowds.

Why is it that floods at Delhi or Mumbai get more focus than more catastrophic and devastating floods in Bengal, Bihar or Assam ?

Media questions everybody , but who questions the media? If you do, you are accused of shooting the messenger. Is media just a messenger, or a perverter, modifier and amplifier of the messages it conveys?

There was a time when TV and Radio broadcasts  were totally Govt controlled. There were technological limitations. Large parts of the country had little or no access to TV. During my initial 6-7 years in the army, all I had access to was Pakistan TV and later Rupavahini for a year.  In any case Doordarshan was neither reliable nor real time . In remote areas it was not even accessible.

But in late 80s and early 90s, with winds of change sweeping across the globe, news coverage attained new dimensions. With Satellite communication, better technology and independent news agencies, nothing could be hidden or manipulated by the Govts.

In the year 1988-89, Pranoy Roy had the viewers riveted to his programme, "The World This Week'. The technology was there to upload or download live data from anywhere to any where. Independent, impartial, hardcore professionals were in key positions covering events global and local. I remember looking forward to Pronoy Roy's  "Good evening and welcome to the world this week....." It was then, that we had witnessed historical events like 'the fall of the Berlin wall' and 'break up of the Soviet Union'. Real time visuals left no doubts, as people saw the events as they unfolded from the safety of their drawing rooms. The Gulf war was witnessed by the whole world in real time.

Just when you thought, nothing could be hidden from the media, it is the media itself that became elusive and double-edged. Pressure from Govt or technological limitations has given way to  pressure from TRP, corporatism , or simply the rat-race.

Today you have the technology, freedom from Govt agencies and professionalism to report accurately; yet, the whole establishment lacks credibility. Even while one channel is breaking news on a sting operation, there is another channel questioning the authenticity of the audio-visual media used. Is it genuine or a 'cut and paste' job ?. Well, if technology can be used to expose a scam, it can also be misused for false accusation or for a cover up operation. Also corporatism has the editors looking at the bottomline even while deciding on what events to cover and how.

I wish we had just one 9 o' clock news from just one channel, like the good old Doordarshan; at least it was predictable.