This deluge in Chennai not only exposed the poor planning of the city’s development and the goodness of individuals to serve, but also exposed the true nature of some of the media. In the name of “telling only the true story” or “giving first news” and parading how they are serving people, most of the media discredited themselves.
For example, this morning (9-12-15) on Raj TV, they showed where they helped some affected people by providing some essentials and rations. Then the reporter said, “No one so far has reached these affected people. They all came only on the main road but failed to reach these people who are living a bit inside. It was only Raj TV who reached these people to help.”
Accordingly they also took an interview of a few people who received the help. All of them in one voice said, “No one came to help them but only Raj TV came to help, although we were suffering for the last six days.”
By trying to claim the ‘credit’ of doing such service, Raj TV has actually ‘discredited’ itself. If they want to parade their charity they have every right to do it, but claiming that they alone have given support to people shows they are more interested in propaganda and a pat on their own back.
Two or three days before near Cuddalore, in another channel, they were interviewing an affected person. The person was stumbling a bit and the reporter said, “Food didn’t come”, and then the interviewee repeated it. Then the reporter said, “No drinking water or other help,” then the interviewee repeated the same words. In other words, in order to highlight the suffering of the people and lack of responsibility of the government, many channels that don’t like the ruling party put their words in the mouths of the people and ask them to repeat.
This has been done in the past also. Of course, it is a known secret that any TV channel reporter will first tell the interviewee what to say and then record it. This we could see by the way people stumble in their words or the reporter putting words in their mouth.
Another menace all the political parties at present are facing is that their opponents will stage some video recording and spread it through Whatsapp, etc. For example, the opposition party will take a video by giving some relief material to some affected people and will ask them to say, “Amma has done this and we will vote for only Amma.” Actually this is done by the opposition but cheating that it is done by the ruling party. The same will be done by the ruling party also. We should guard ourselves by not passing such ‘propaganda news’ to others.
Most Tamil news programs showed the rescue and relief work done by the government and other central government agencies in poor light. Similarly, in Jaya TV everything was positive and glorious work was done by the government and the ministers and members of the party. Sun TV is the worst one of all. I used to watch Sun TV as there would be some important news. But after the Chennai deluge, I completely stopped watching Sun TV news as they have ‘discredited’ themselves by the negative propaganda.
Of course, people like me are a minority and our view is not going to change their nature. But neutral people like me who do not take sides with any party have to register our resentment by such media menace that is happening at present in our country—particularly in Tamilnadu. According to my understanding, there is not a single Tamil News channel which remains unbiased and neutral in giving a report on any issue that is related with Tamilnadu, though sometimes News 7 channel tries to remain neutral, but most of the time fails too. It is a well known fact that several TV channels change their loyalty after every election result. Thanthi TV has epitomized this art, as it remains the fundamental principle of it from the beginning. In the past ‘paid news’ were famous. Now ‘Paid News Channels’ become NORMAL.
Db
9-12-15
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