Since our coming to live in Kerala, we do not have access to four news papers we used to subscribe for our news gathering. So we watch TV little longer than what we have been used to. This has created within me anxiety and anguish over the way we use the visual media.
The five private popular national English channels have a common design for their presentations. The evenings are prime viewing time. In a broadcasting time of half an hour five to seven minutes would be the advertisement time , which brings in money to run these channels.
During the last two weeks, I was looking for some 'good news' of social events, speeches, human stories of interest, acts of kindness or charity or biographical sketches of people who triumphed over circumstances or philanthropical initiatives, etc. I found about 12 percent of time spent for such references in the popular channels. Most of the prime times were spent broadcasting controversies, conflicts or crimes. Of late the debates are full of accusations, intimidations, personal attacks or political posturing.
During the last three years, we have added many more regional and national channels. Each channel has a political, religious or business affiliation. We have turned the media to promote sensational news and private interests. The news channels are no more sources of information which can form opinions and attitudes. The BBC has been the gold standard for several decades now. But it has also been under compulsion to be successful commercially that in the recent times, it has also compromised its ethical standards and integrity in broadcasting.
Although I agonise over this, I see no ray of hope in the horizon. I hope the social media will take over to create opinions, values, appeals and represent the voice of the commons!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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