Indian Journalism...A mere entertainer...!!

Journalism is said to be the fourth pillar of any democratic state. If I ask the same question with respect to India, I don't see it as a strength as it could be. Sometimes I feel that Indian news channels are mere entertainers as against the best in the industry like Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post etc. This is one of the reasons why not even a single Indian media house gets that respect on any international platform. Today so many Indian companies are seen as world leaders but why don't we see any Indian media houses up the podium ? This question needs a greater deal of introspection from all the media houses in our country.

I really feel sad for Indian media that they have still not developed into a responsible and mature journalism. What I feel that we are still nowhere near to investigative journalism. If media has the courage and enthusiasm to live telecast every second of events like 26/11 then they must have the courage to follow every story behind it as the media houses like Wall Street journal, NY Times etc. do. We can take various cases for example 2008 Delhi Blast, Samjhauta Express blast, Malegaon Blast etc. but none of the cases where deeply followed by any Indian media houses. They can very well investigate it and bring some real truths in the light. This will in turn pressurize the Police, Government, Politicians or Babus to expedite the investigation. That is why journalism is called the fourth pillar of democracy. But what we see in India is exactly the opposite. The media here is very happy to report some sensational issues in a flashy manner and forget the same as soon as the cases fail to fetch them higher TRPs. This is the reason why I feel that they too are a bunch of entertainers which guide themselves by TRPs and not by their duties.

We can take number of examples where we can easily see the bias by Indian journalists. Why a blast in Mumbai gets more attention than a blast in North East ? Ain't the people died in North East are our fellow Indian citizens ? Of course Mumbai is our financial capital but it doesn't mean that we forget any NE blast in two days time and even forget to report the aftermath. Why a mere traffic jam or heavy rain in Mumbai gets beamed live but we forget to show the sorrow of flood or drought in any rural part of India ? Why a small accident in Delhi gets more prime time on channels and cases of farmers suicide fails to get even a minute ? Like these, there are various questions which may again fall into the deaf ears of our so called elite social page 3 animals.

We always boast of our democracy but it needs a contribution from all walks of life and journalism needs to play a very important role in it. Though we can't fully criticize media as it has also played some key roles on various occasions. But they also need to decide upon their priorities and duties otherwise days are not far when the daily dose of news becomes another soap like "kahani ghar ghar ki" or "saas bhi kabhi bahu thi".