Burning question, To News or Not to News?

If 2020 was a Pandora’s box, then unfortunately, it chose to open and shower it’s content over humanity(its called Karma) this year. Almost through the ninth month and the box seems to be perennial. No happy ending to this gestation I reckon.

Its been a year stricken with panic, grief, turmoil and many revelations. One such recurring revelation is of a society loaded with fickle-minded people.

We as a society are driven by controversy and gossip. We strive to be judgemental and at the same time sympathise. We spew hate with our limited knowledge and bestow unwarranted love. We don’t introspect, we incriminate.

No matter how many sins or misdoings one has committed in their own lifetime, another’s sin seem more unpardonable. A prevalent holier than thou attitude. This pandemic has taken away many lives & livelihoods. I wonder if moral sense was also part of the virus’ brochure .

Fake news seems to prevail and news that should be relevant is blurred out in the background. Suddenly, a dead persons whereabouts matter more than the one struggling to survive next door. The state of the matter is such that the dead might rise to rest their case.

Character assassination, trial by media, witch hunt are words one hears today, for a person is not left to the courts for judgement. Its a responsibility burdened by our media houses on their able shoulders, for they deem themselves better judge’s than our honourable courts.

Privacy has become trivial for everything you touch reveals itself online. Beware, a chat with your mother is evidence under the court of law, the same law which has the power to leak it to the so-called torch bearers of everything fake because murder is something you plot with your parents and discuss over a chat. Right!

Personal space is a thing of the past, breaking into one’s abode is the new norm. Gone are the days when news was a medium of information. Now its a discussion of panels with panellists of no greater qualification than a loudmouth and an even louder anchor whose constant interruptions will break even a Shaolin monks patience.

Now that’s entertainment to the general public and bare musings over the evening tea and dinner table conversations.

Forgetting the plight of the families involved, bearing witness to the apathy, the scrutiny, the misguided hate towards their loved one, reduced to being a mere spectator. The years of work, respect, admiration, adulation all shattered in a moment. Their child being crucified for a crime she has yet to be proven guilty of.

Remember, innocent until proven guilty!

Will the respect be regained if acquitted? Will their life ever be normal again? Will they be able to live in peace? How many therapists & sessions will it take to forget and surpass this moment of agony? Will the media houses reimburse these overtly priced sessions?

Does anyone care? The definite answer is worryingly NO.

The person accused has become a scapegoat for a well thought after conspiracy of cover up’s, where more relevant matters are wilfully masqueraded by this media trial of sorts. Here the common man has been made audience to the discussions of suicide, murder, money heists, drugs to blind them from the pertinent matters, that is, the growing number of Covid cases in the country, the lives lost, the decreasing GDP and the increasing job losses, the growing border tensions with our neighbours.

Honestly though, who wants to hear about the Corona cases when you have gossips from the biggest industry in the world right in front amusing you. Vilification has its own charms. Isn’t it?

Journalism has come to its lowest point just like our dipping GDP. Morals and integrity has taken a back seat. Baked controversies and fake news realm over authenticity and conviction. To the one’s still upholding ethics, resign now and salvage your souls. Your principles are dispensable but TRP’s not.

Our Madhu “the cook” didi, passed her verdict few mornings ago, announcing the said person guilty with so much conviction that even the courts wouldn’t deny her. Then, who am I but a mere human to reason with her and trial.

Ignorant as she is like many among us and beyond correction, I mused whether this offensive habit of “poking in other’s business” has trickled down from our older lot to my millennial and Gen-Z friends or are they are as WOKE as the popular word among them?

Expecting the latter to be True.