Thursday, June 21, 2007

Hyping News!

With the advent of new news channel, the dearth of quality reporting has made a mark. The other day i was reading a "report" by someone from a "leading daily" in a very large metro - this is how the "reporting goes"

"The accident occurred a mere 16 days after another teenaged driver put two food vendors in hospital just metres away from Monday’s accident site at Khar Danda. Nearby Carter Road has been the site of several accidents in the recent past. Recently, the traffic department said the owner of the car would be arrested if an under-age person was found driving it.

Salim Khan (name changed), a resident of Uttar Pradesh, had been staying for the last few days at his maternal uncle Miraj Khan’s (45) home at Khar Danda.

Salim, anxious to try out Miraj’s grey Maruti Zen, stole the keys and set off on a drive. Only, a nervous Salim (14) hit the accelerator hard as soon as he turned on the ignition, slamming the car into a stall and two houses. Fisherwoman Parvati Saroj (50) suffered severe head injuries.

A terrified Salim jumped out of the car and tried to flee, but he was nabbed by the locals and taken to his uncle’s residence nearby. As Miraj ran to the spot to take Saroj to hospital, locals told Salim’s aunt what had happened.

Taking advantage of a diversion, Salim fled and is yet to be traced.

The teenager’s relatives said the the car was bought only eight days earlier and that Salim

had never driven an automobile before. “It seemed as if he did not know about the brakes,” said Mohammed Ayub, a witness to the crash. Ayub, who was repairing his scooter at the spot, suffered minor injuries after the car brushed his right leg.

The car itself was mangled. “It was so terrible that parts of the car flew into the houses nearby,” Ayub said. "

Given the quality of the article, one wonders on what grounds do editors ask journos to write. This is more like a high school essay submission “a nervous salim,… “ gwad.

Competing closely with bullshit reporting is the television media. You really must give it to them because they need to churn out the same shit, so many times a day, that they should ensure that they don’t get bored of reporting / repeting it. So what do they do? Sensationalize!


The above article was there in a leading news website - Terror in Jammu and KAshmir school curriculum.
Wow! so now with the world already talking that madarsas are teaching all kids terrorist tacticts, an article like this echos just that, but is that the article? no! the article is that they have started introducing methods for kids to cope with terrorism, but talking about it. The initiative itself is brilliant, but the way the headline is given makes you believe that they are teaching something else. Is there NO one to check this kind of "hype" reporting?

Todays article was titled " World Prays:Atlantis stuck in space" You thinking 'OMG" hope we dont have another problem, but then it goes on to talk that there is cloudy weather, hence they cannot land. So as much as it is a temporary phenomenon, you really need to churn out shit to keep readers on one's site!

God save this industry!
Locations of visitors to this page