Journalism could not have stooped any lower. Recently, a video of a Madhya Pradesh’s Animal Husbandry Minister Kusum Mehdele kicking aside a teenage beggar went viral.
The video showed how insensitive our politicians are. After the news broke out, the media channels were desperate to take a news byte from a poor child. A journo is seen enticing a poor kid and putting words in his mouth to strike an emotional chord with the audience. The journo is also seen trading with the kid promising alcohol and money. The video is symbolic of what has gone wrong with the mainstream media where TRP’s are the prime indicators of quality and performance.
The mad race for TRP’s by compromising on values and ethics as in this case is becoming more of a norm. It is breach of trust which the vast numbers of people have on the mainstream media as a source of legitimate information. Media was meant to kindle the logic in us with emotion complimenting it and not the other way round. TLI requests the self-regulated media to take a collective decision on keeping up the minimum standards of journalism and work towards a progressive media built on liberal values. India is not short of talented journalists, all we ask to them is to not let us down. We also welcome the fact that, the journo in question has been fire in response to the video going viral.
