An Open Letter to Indian News Media
Dear Indian Journalist, Media Reporters, Editors, Whom So Ever the Fuck it Concerned,
I am writing today to issue a plea on behalf my fellow Indians. It’s, admittedly, a move borne out of extreme anxiety and initiate from the minds of people who can’t see the light now.
We are a nation of diverse voices, opinions, religion, values, political beliefs, culture… I sure hope you know. In addition, we have many problems as people with fewer privileges, family to feed, petrol prices, interest rates, jobs, losing our friends in bomb blasts, fearing for our women, make ends meet, again a long list.
The Mass Media is often referred to as the fourth branch of government because of the power you wield and the oversight function you exercise. The media’s key role in democratic governance has been recognized since the late 17th century, and remains a fundamental principle of modern-day democratic theory and practice.
17th century, theorists had argued that exposure and openness provide the best protection against tyranny and the excesses of arbitrary rule. Thomas Jefferson, for all his bitterness against journalistic criticism celebrated the press, arguing that only through the exchange of information and opinion through the press would the truth emerge. Thus the famous Jeffersonian declaration:
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.
In a democratic country,like India,newspapers are the important means of forming public opinion.You comment on current events and criticise or appreciate the conduct of the Government. It is through them that the public comes to know the problems that face the country. Thus you educate the public mind and enable the people to have their own opinions on matters of public importance.
Your role in society is simple one.
- Give us facts
- Create and sustain revolutions, pleas
- Fight for what is right
- Guide us
- Amplify our problems/ voices so government can hear us
- Eventually you should be ‘Junta ki awaz’
- And become change agent
I hope we are clear yet. However, very sadly you are not doing anything at all.
What you in turn do is in reality is “pure bigoted, blasphemous and banal”.
Mumbai : You turned this incident in a bloody TRP war, where people’s live were as irrelevant as Barkha’s approach to ethical journalism.
Moral Police : Women were being physically abused and all you could do was to shoot the video so you can say “First Reported Here…”. Have you no fucking soul. What did your video do, advertised and propagated fear…Hurray a well lived day !
Raj Thackeray: This moron stand for everything I know to be wrong, and I am not alone, and what you do about it, nothing help him advance his agenda and have a debates like fucking primate morons on what he saying is right or wrong. Its wrong ask a 5 year old and they’ll tell you.
Religion : This is the funny part here, On August 25, a 29 year old Catholic nun was allegedly raped by a fanatic Hindu mob and paraded through the streets shouting Bharat mata Ki Jai- TOI, Mumbai, 4th October 2008
Free Speech : In an op-ed written over an year ago (unfortunately, due to site changes, it is inaccessible on Hindustan Times), Barkha Dutt, the managing editor of NDTV, had vented against anonymous blogger who espouse popular opinion which are ”often bigoted, blasphemous and banal.”
Now, not that I ran out of examples, its just enough to drive the point across. You have become too shallow, sleaze, sensationalist and superficial even for your own good, all I can say is people, we listen to you, so do your job properly.We don’t need you to be pimps for movies people and celebs. We don’t need your opinions, just a rational analysis, we don’t need your pointless debates and dumb followup questions. We need to you enable a democracy.
Finally all my friends when you read this please make sure at least one journalist, gets it.
Source: The role of the media in deepening democracy : Sheila s. Corone and A Few Indian Who Still Care.
If you liked this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Bloggers Against Plagiarism Drive
As always, Benjamin Franklin did put it aptly, “Originality is the art of concealing your sources”. You see what happened there, I mentioned the original source and didn’t say ‘As always, Chirag did put it ….’.
We work hard on our articles, posts, images, rants and share the same in good faith. Expecting that hard work of the author will be respected. We don’t create these for the trolls, spammer, splogers, thieves, and morons.
Most of the work until otherwise specified is under the “Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India” license, which in English means,
You are free to share if and only if, you have pointer back to the authors’ original work, you do not make money of it and no derivatives without permission
If you are in India and need to put Creative Commons on you blog here is the code.
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/in/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0;" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/2.5/in/88x31.png"></a> This work is by <a href="YOUR_BLOG_URL" rel="attributionURL">AUTHOR NAME</a> and is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/in/"> this License</a>.
If you are based out of USA and need to put Creative Commons on you blog here is the code.
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0;" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/2.5/in/88x31.png"></a> This work is by <a href="YOUR_BLOG_URL" rel="attributionURL">AUTHOR NAME</a> and is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/in/"> this License</a>.
More Countries can be found here.
Tools To Fight against Against Plagiarism
WordPress
If you find a questionable blog, you can just click on the ‘Report As Spam’
Blogger/Blogspot
If you find a questionable blog, you can just flag it.
*For both above, you should be logged in the respective service.
If Unsure
Just leave us a comment here and we’ll do our best to help you.
Finally, if you believe in creating new content without fear, join us at Youth Unite. This post is inspired by Vishesh.
Blog Haiku, you made them
Haiku, is a form of Japanese poetry, I have made these using a small game(explained below). Read the three lines in one go.
Free Up the Ram
Are we actually free
Like the incessant wave that erodes the soil.
Jai Sri Ram!
Withdrawal
Why is negativity more powerful than positivity?
Some people are born losers.
I am leaving
Men Won’t Say it yet
What we really mean when we say…
Nobody wants to speak
Today is India’s republic day
Change
There are some days in our life when
My 4 year old daughter learnt about Planets
Go Change
Hope you enjoy these. The way to do this is really simple. Randomly select three blogs from your blogroll and just write first line, it will all be connected and will make sense, give a title. This is still expremental so please be kind on the rhymes 
Pursuit of Happiness
We all have our dull moments and we all, sometimes feel “this is not happening to me!”. Then we listen to a song, write diary, talk to that someone, drink beer, eat a chocolate….
Me among other things, watch this video, I got this in email years back and since then it has made me smile again and again, get back on my feet, ready to fight next battle. What is it that you do to get over dullness or sadness?
Is it Ethical to Blog from Workplace?
Well, my rational is since, office is my first home, and I am here 12-16 hours a day. I have no guilt, and feel it is okay to blog, comment and read other blogs in office, anything as long and as the work is not effected. Your Say?
Marriages are Made Heaven, or you Thought So
In engineering, we were good three friends, we sat together, cheated in exams together, irritated Profs…you know the good friends stuff, and after engineering we went separate ways. Anuj and I were in India and Sparky left for UK for a good opportunity. So I was pleasantly surprise when surprised to hear from Spark.
Sparky: Hi Maccha.
Me: Hey how are you, long time no hear. We should meet today.
Sparky: Umm… will you be able to tolerate a spiritual talk by my Guruji. (He is devoted Guy, Now and I mean devotees who have given their lives to Ramakrishna Mission)
Me: *gulp* okkk…sure Man, but not more than 1 hour. (We were meeting after a long time and I really didn’t want to go but he’s my good friend, so here we are)
Now we both are in the prayer meeting, everyone was chanting and I was sitting there feeling like a alien. Anyways we were sitting very near to Guriji and when people had stopped the devotional songs, I saw Guruji called Sparky, told you Sparky’s famous. Then the next thing I saw was like a scene from ‘Ripley’s Believe or Not!’, Guruji told Sparky I think you should marry her and pointed at a girl in the crowd. I was shocked out of my wits and Sparky as always calmly just said “As, you wish Guruji”. And in few minutes later they were married. I was still in shock and looked at him and understood its not a right time to speak. After the marriage Sparky called his parents, he is married now. I was not sure of all this divinity happening around and excused myself, Sparky knew I won’t ask anything. It is his faith after all.
Next day we met at the Airport as he was leaving for UK. I asked him, where is your ring? He said why does he need that. And all I could say was Dude, when you land in UK you should not think all this was a dream. He said just got her an iPod Touch. We smiled. he left and I was confused.
Can you have so much faith?
We all ♥ Short✁
When I am on ✈ and want to post ✉, I rely a lot on short✂’s so here is where I get my ♞power from. These can be used in ✎ mails, blog anything. Dedicated to IHM, you know why.
✌ Chirag.
