Of media & reviews

Of media & reviews

The reaction to a supposedly breaking story in a small newspaper can loosen up “men in tights”.  In an age of mainstream media, where a business newspaper is only valued by its liaisons with top corporates, a big story break in a boutique newspaper can gobble up such monsters, if only for a while. Suddenly, one might hear voices in a lone head and see intense visions.

A snobbish editor from an upstart media house might suddenly yield the low ground to “congratulate” the reporter involved with the story. He may even feign ignorance of the existence of the newspaper and recount how he only heard the news in a conference in the morning when others were talking about it. While another big media-house attributes the news by a national newspaper to a local one and refuses to acknowledge its presence. In this case, the solitary hero is foreign to an era in which it is understood that the world is increasingly interconnected now and big brands are slowly losing their exclusivities.

The reaction is often comical when some senior reporter from the industry comments:  “How could this newspaper fire up the stock?” (The story had moved up stock of a certain company). Such reactions reveal the disillusionment of the savvy journalists. It also points us to a certain sense of disconnect with the reality or an escapist mindset to avoid all complexities of modern media.

The recent trend in the media world is the dispersion of the center- it's natural because the news channels and newspapers no longer offer perspectives, because Indian society itself no longer presents an illusion of unity. Many  TV channels which have been anointed as stars with the maximum TRP (television rating point) or viewership’ turn out to be glorified corporate mouthpieces.

And these two realms of media and viewers become dispersed and discentered because people have stopped believing. Often, the result of such brutal reactions is yearning for a time when news was born out of idealism, a time when fewer questions were asked, fewer assumptions were made.

meghnamaiti@mydigitalfc.com