Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Thought provoking speech...By A:J:Kalam

The Ex President of India, DR. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam 's Speech in Hyderabad

Why is the media here so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements?

We are such a great nation.

We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them.Why? 


We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.


Look at Dr. Sudarshan , he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place.

The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

Part of the Speech By Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam on negative media role.

I am only highlighting his first bigger question pointing at Media for its negative role being played which is true in every sense and can be tagged as a journalism with no positive contribution.

Unfortunately, all the over dramatized, over played media attention and exposure on criminals, goons, smugglers is making every one of them heroes. No investigative reporting is done and if done not followed right through till criminal acts are exposed completely.

The classic example was of a Lab report on soft drinks like Cola and Pepsi. We as viewers were told by the popular TV channel that the lab with latest equipment has found results that are shocking. Who says this? The expert from the same lab. who is technically competent in the chemical analysis. The lady says this on the TV which is watched by millions of viewers that, COLA and PEPSI is not fit for human consumption. This was said with laboratory's evidence produced at the time in the studio. 

This sensational news concerning health of millions who consume these soft drinks daily was indeed a serious issue. The News channel kept showing this investigative reporting for days. It was followed by other print media then. Every consumer was in awe! Shocked to hear the news. Health ministry got involved then.

And suddenly one day I saw full page advertisements by both the soft drink makers, saying in print that the recent report published by media is completely false and not true. Then the TV personality was hired to make a statement in a sponsored advertisement stating that it is completely safe and I have checked it. ( of course she got paid for saying that)

But my point is.....

WHY the TV channel which published the story did not call the people from the lab again to say to millions of viewers that what the soft drink manufacturers are claiming is completely false as we have the reports to prove it or what we said on TV channel was false, cooked up, irresponsible.?

What are we as viewers suppose to understand from this? Why the media which took it up did not do its investigation again to established the facts to prove their credibility and expose the culprits?

Or was it merely to create sensational news? To increase TRP of the channel? Playing with millions to fool them for making advertising bucks?

So is the case with TALK shows. They are more entertaining than objective to address the peoples issues.

What is the role media playing? Negative? Positive? or self serving role? What works good for them? And what works best to get more advertising bucks?

Ajay Angre
Author, Writer, Publisher 

No comments:

Post a Comment