Indian media - I hang my head in shame

Author: Som / Labels: , , , , ,


On the first day of June, around 8:30 in the morning I was having breakfast before leaving for office, with an eye on the television. I came across a news channel airing some news of one lady who was murdered.

The anchor, a vociferous young man, announced that this seemed to be another dowry death case in the Delhi region. As I took in a mouthful of porridge I thought how common a phenomenon had 'dowry-deaths' become. But what I heard and saw next apalled me like it never had ever in my life!!

On the TV screen appeared a man, who was apparently a relative of the deceased, carrying a sweet looking kid - a boy all of 5 years of age. To my surprise it was not the relative being interviewed. Instead, it was the kid who had a mike thrust in his face. The unabashed reporter was asking him - 'Mummy ko kisne mara (who killed your mother?)' to which the innocent little kid replied with a heavenly smile 'Papa (Father)'! I couldn't but gulped in a lump that had formed in my throat. The poor little kid obviously did not realize the magnitude of what had happened in his life.

We have seen such media atrocities earlier too, even depicted in the movie Mumbai Meri Jaan where a reporter, played by Soha Ali Khan is shown to have lost her fiance and her own channel builds a primetime program on her loss and grief. Even standup comedian Raju Srivastav had made fun of how a reporter asks a person stuck in a flood 'Aapko kaisa lag raha hai (how does it feel?)'.

But what I saw that morning was a new low. Oh, and as if that was not enough, another channel aired a half hour program with the kid only in the evening!

I hang my head in shame. How lower can we go from here?

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