Dear News Media
& the wave stuck...a different person, a different setting but the same unrepentant demeanour, the same swagging arrogance.
When Rajdeep Sardesai was slapped, the echo reverberated till home and for long. Most rejoiced, few were aghast - & media paid a silent obituary to journalism.
I've grown up watching Rajdeep on NDTV, have loved him, respected him and pondered pleasingly on the Old Monk tweets. It was sad & it hurt badly. But why did the media remain a mute spectator? Some over zealous hooligans on rampage, and Times NOW celebrates the Rockstar! Where was the front page of newspaper that can zoom in possibly anywhere & everywhere? Why did 4th estate crumble like a house of cards?
That journalism had made way for 'news products', we knew, but to be so blind, so un-acknowledging to the events at Madison Square shows a complete surrender. Those involved in the incident were part of a blameless mob, but where were you, the respected news channels and publications of the country?
I represent perhaps the last generation that grew up to respect journalists, I represent a section who considered the 8:30 pm news on DD sacrosanct and boring, I represent a community that took the headline to be the truth and only the truth. You have no right to let us down. A respected member from your field is attacked and you do not even blink an eyelid. & here we are not even talking of Assam floods? If you can't stand up for your own, what is the guarantee you will ever stand up for the oppressed or even the celebrated common man?
We don't understand your compulsions to make money, we don't buy your point of becoming a Talking Tom to your masters. We want news, not tailored interviews, not advertorials, not a tool of propaganda.
Please free the journalists that you have archived in your galleries. Let them report and not be coining fancy terms. The nation needs you...
& the wave stuck...a different person, a different setting but the same unrepentant demeanour, the same swagging arrogance.
When Rajdeep Sardesai was slapped, the echo reverberated till home and for long. Most rejoiced, few were aghast - & media paid a silent obituary to journalism.
I've grown up watching Rajdeep on NDTV, have loved him, respected him and pondered pleasingly on the Old Monk tweets. It was sad & it hurt badly. But why did the media remain a mute spectator? Some over zealous hooligans on rampage, and Times NOW celebrates the Rockstar! Where was the front page of newspaper that can zoom in possibly anywhere & everywhere? Why did 4th estate crumble like a house of cards?
That journalism had made way for 'news products', we knew, but to be so blind, so un-acknowledging to the events at Madison Square shows a complete surrender. Those involved in the incident were part of a blameless mob, but where were you, the respected news channels and publications of the country?
I represent perhaps the last generation that grew up to respect journalists, I represent a section who considered the 8:30 pm news on DD sacrosanct and boring, I represent a community that took the headline to be the truth and only the truth. You have no right to let us down. A respected member from your field is attacked and you do not even blink an eyelid. & here we are not even talking of Assam floods? If you can't stand up for your own, what is the guarantee you will ever stand up for the oppressed or even the celebrated common man?
We don't understand your compulsions to make money, we don't buy your point of becoming a Talking Tom to your masters. We want news, not tailored interviews, not advertorials, not a tool of propaganda.
Please free the journalists that you have archived in your galleries. Let them report and not be coining fancy terms. The nation needs you...
No comments:
Post a Comment