Fourth Estate...

I've been on a search for the perfect news paper for a long time now. There are many choices related to the fourth estate whether it is print, or the tube..but yet to fit into my scheme of things.

I like my news in black & white, with not to many atrocious pictures in pecking order. The highest priority news should be on the first page and so on..This is a very simple requirement as per me..

In search I have sampled most of the newspaper variety and the channels..Most bangloreans would swear by the Times, as is rest of India. But I find that paper a colorful bash of words with the most “sensational” news on the first page. You have to really score the paper well to actually catch a good piece of investigational journalism or actual breaking news.. Newer generation print media like DNA, Mint seem to be much better. The Hindu is a good one, when I was in school , my parents used to insist on reading this paper to improve Vocab. But an issue here is they have few editions and local news is mostly missing.

Business newspapers are also not far left behind in “ sensationalization”. In college we used to get a free copy of ET ( Economic Times). Every now and then there is an award function organized by ET and this would cover more than half of its paper weight. I fail to understand how self proclaiming can be done to such an extent.

English News channels usually have the same breaking news flashing across the entire spectrum at the same time. These headlines are usually limited and it is more to channelize people interest. Recently there was the “Rathore Case” being flashed on TV.While this is on, you can forget the Haiti Quake or the Kashmiri Terrorist or just about anything else. The whole team would be focused on relaying various footage of this case and constructing how the plot would have worked. If it is cricket season ( it is always season in India) then all channels and programs sound like sports news. Here I’m talking about high TRP rated channels like CNN IBN , NDTV , Times Now etc.

There are many more regional channels which seem like a mouthpiece of the movie industry. This is entirely devoted to Page 3 and nothing else.

I was recently reading an article on the sale of Fourth Estate and paid news articles.. This is entirely devastating. Now where does this place China & India ? China it is filtered or censored media, but India has paid & sensational media, I cant really decide which is worse.

2 comments:

Abinesh said...

Know what i guess the new's INDUSTRY as such (not the service) is just trying to differentiate with each other ... like soo many people buy times simply for the gossips u get .... hindu simply because of the language and some heavy editorials .... i guess they are just tying to market their product by differentiating from otheres. I guess at the end they also want to make just money and nothing else ... they really dont care what you want to know :) so i doubt your crib will be answered ... he he ... Even AK pointed out the same on indian media service right ? :) .. but i just have a doubt ... why has it become like that ... could it be the readers and their need for such page 3 and colourful pictures and not journalism ? are we as readers spoiling the media industry or the media industry themself ?

Anu said...

In India the public savors anything that the media doles out. I think there seems to be a need for change in the media itself, recently Indian Express tried to rebrand itself with the " I Believe campaign" and there are fresh papers like Mint & DNA.
Issue may be that one paper tries to fit all size and then it becomes a hotch potch of Page 3 & " Breaking News "