kokoroZendo

I was always wary of blatantly self righteous people. Still I am. Especially those with that ‘holier than thou” attitude, who always covers themselves in the pristine purity of white and notice only the darkest of black spots in others. This is about the nauseating feeling one gets, looking at the smirks in the faces of usual chutzpah crowd of prime time TV when they run down others in the most damning of languages .

In a speech , late EMS Namboothiripad , had said that for many decades after Guttenberg invented the first mechanical printing press, the common folks believed whatever Printed as Gospel truth. Even after the times Goebels, the Nazi PRO, still many do. It was a hobby of mine, to read the top story of the day ( most often controversial pot boiler of the day) in 4 different Malayalam Newspapers and note down the differences in perception, tone , tenor and hidden intention/ motive. Soon it was not very difficult to guess what Manorama would have written about a Marxist leader without even reading the content.

Soon I realized that it is important to read between the lines and see thru the stories, if one wants to live in this world by saving one’s mind and life from the propaganda around us . It really amuses me so few people in our world understand this. No wonder it is said that 5 % of the world influences or decides how the other 95 % should think and live.

It is imperative to discount the majority of the words we read and hear, add a lot of salt, in search of the needle of truth in the haystack of news stories. There are very few editors out there with a spine and who don’t have to lick the boots of their paymasters. And then there a few out there with a spine, but allowed their brains to be doctrinated by fundamentalist ideas that they sound like mere polemicists. Then this is not about editors, journalists and T V Anchors with a world view of their own who don’t hesitate to state it in open, so that others are very clear about how subjective they are in their “Objective” views. So one knows where a Chandan Mitra , Swapn Das Gupta and TVR Shenoy stands. So also one does not get surprised @ when N Ram writes in The Hindu about Tibet and China or when Vinod Mehta of Outlook proclaims his pseudo secularism.

This is about many others who allow the common man’s trust to be betrayed at the altar of Publisher’s greed for profit ( At any cost).

During one of those hysterical sham debates in TV, as we sat watching the “Resident Patriot” of “The Truman Show “ spewing venom @ Ms. Arundati Roy and almost sounded like exhorting a lynch mob, I was telling my spouse about the corruption in the media. It happened that on the same day I was reading an article written by B. G. Varghese on Media corruption whom I quote “The complete whitewash of the Press Council’s two member sub- committee report on Paid News, Private Treaties and other dishonourable media practices, devalues India’s democratic coinage. The cover up was done by a larger committee of 12 members which sabotaged the findings of Paranjoy Guha-Thakurta and K Srinivas Reddy who nailed the malfeasance, naming and shaming the parties involved. This provided strong circumstantial evidence, carefully documented, to back the earlier disquiet of the Election.”

Commission and Securities and Exchange Board of India with regard to these corrupt practices. In the result, the PCI, the custodian of freedom of expression turned censor.”

I also read in a media watch website that , 2 years ago, when a workers lift collapsed in a building construction site in Bangalore killing 3 workers, the manner , “one national newspaper did not name the builder in its news report was” very conspicuous. It was also reported that the said builder had give an equity stake to the “investment arm “of the Newspaper. That particular newspaper group is one of the biggest private equity investor in India.

I request you to read the report on the Open Magazine about Barkha Dutt’s conversation with Nira Radia. It is distressing to say the least. Then go on to read the article on Tehelka about the middlemen and lobbyists.

In my view, it is very important for Indian Media and TV Networks, to come clean on Media Corruption, before even they attempt to point fingers @ other sections of the society.

Clean up like Charity should start at home.

Till then, I request very humbly, Please “GO”swamy.

tWiST: Pls see the transcripts posted @ http://www.outlookindia.com.

“Kaduvaye Pidikunna Kiduva” is a Mallu saying which literally means “monster which eats the tiger”. While our TV journalists shows off their scoops and documents on TV, they hardly realize that the most intelligent sardar on earth, may be aware that the Chettiar @ home or Bengali babu may be listening to these as lullabies before they go to sleep every night.