One of the most powerful entities on earth, ‘Media’ has the power to make an innocent feel guilty and the guilty gain power over the victim and lose the title of being the accused.
Media in the year 2019 of the 21st century has the neck grabbing; dogmatic capability to create news and sensationalise the irrelevant and nonsensical issues. Some news gets the unwanted attention and hype without even deserving. In the democracy today media is of the utmost importance, media can mould thoughts and help build opinions of the people. You must take a look back in the olden times when there was feudal oppression which has led to media and now that it has become the 4th pillar of the state.
Long time back when there was colonial rule voice was raised against feudalism and despotism. When the media and the government unite to win the elections and form governments. If the media is biased then who should the people trust? Now the political rivalries and communalism is being promoted and sensationalism is being sold by the government who is busy making the false promises.
There is a thin line of difference between facts and opinions, now in news you do not simply make judgements on the basis of the opinions as it must be totally reality based or on the basis of the facts.
Media believes that the journalists are the watchdogs of the society but they have now started behaving as simply dogs that have been tamed by the rich and the powerful. It feels like as if there are colonies formed and the media rules over them.
Nowadays a new practice in journalism has taken over which is deteriorating the quality of content of the news. The current scenario in journalism is that now yellow journalism is being practiced to a great extent. What is yellow journalism to begin with? It is a kind of journalism that is never close to the real news or the facts. It on purpose uses the shocking headlines just to grab the much required attention of the people. It results in grabbing the attention of the people and it helps the media brand name to become more popular and produce more sales. It gives away the exaggerating facts and spreading unnecessary rumours. Although it does bring a huge traffic to the websites and makes brings the news in the trending column but the educated people the responsible citizens of the society who want valuable and informative news lose their interest and trust from these kinds of people or the media channels who do so.
Media has lost its credibility as there are many who have started calling themselves as journalists, there are many freelancers that consider themselves as the journalists and end up putting any misleading news out on the internet. They simply want to boost their online business and get more and more news, put up any news that bring more and more people together, never focusing on the quality but just the quantity of the content.
Earlier, where news was simply available through the medium of print nowadays, the case is totally various mediums for the same news. Some important news which needs the attention of the people is pushed back by the nonsensical news. The unwanted news take the space in the columns, section of the website and the newspaper marked as Latest National English News Headlines or Today’s latest national news!
In the section of the news website that states Today’s latest national news must stand true to its words and not just tell news of a wardrobe malfunction of a TV actress.
How can media gain back its reliability and win back confidence in people?
It is not an overnight task it will take a considerable amount of time for media to gain back its trust in people. We as the consumers and of news and information must make sure that we do not pay attention to such not so resourceful news. Somewhere we are responsible for the kind of news that is being produced.
