The End of the 4th Pillar of Democracy
Is News dead?
These days the News seems less like news and more like a circus. But what difference does it make?
Everyone is getting entertained; fine!
MEDIA IS THE 4TH PILLAR OF DEMOCRACY
They can take the Public's voice to the Government. They can ask the right questions; this is their only role. But what is happening on our TV channels these days? It seems like as a society we need to do something and ask some tough questions to our media.
What should be news?
What exactly gets preference in the news?
Journalism looks at these 5 criteria to decide whether an item is newsworthy or not.
· Timing
· Prominence
· Significance
· Proximity
· Human interest
Let us consider only 2 criteria:
· Reliability (whether the source of news is reliable or not?)
· Impact (will it make a difference or not.)
Now to evaluate each:
If both Reliability and Impact are low then that is not news, it is a gossip.
If Reliability is low and Impact is high, this may lead to a panic situation.
For Example: In April, huge crowd gathered in Mumbai because of fake news.
A good or constructive piece of news is the one which is highly reliable and has a high impact on the society. There having both high reliability as well as high impact.
How is news reported?
Our mind is naturally attracted towards negative emotions like fear, Corruption, Scams, etc. This tendency gives rise to sensationalism.
In situations where media houses only put a question mark in the headline and absolve themselves of any responsibility because they are only reporting a possibility. This is called Yellow Journalism.
The media is one of the most powerful entities in the world. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that is power. They control the minds of the masses.
So, the real question is if the media can divert our attention then which direction should we be looking in?
Why is media reporting?
The money we pay for subscriptions hardly covers 5% of the revenue. Where does the balance (95%) come from?
Of course, from the ads! There are some ads that we are shown and some that go unseen. The unseen ads take the form of a narrative.
The pondering question is the news should be objective, right? If there is an opinion bias in the news, then it's a blogpost, not news. If a moderator decides debate's conclusion beforehand; then why call it a debate?
What can we do?
simple; stop being a puppet!
After asking the media and yourself all these questions If you feel that something is wrong with the Prime-Time debates, news, etc. Then we have good news for you. The remote is in YOUR hands. Today we need to support constructive journalism. The Better India reports positive news happening across India. 101 Reporters bring stories from rural India before you. The Yuva Project aims at providing knowledge to the youth on many sensitive as well as social topics.
“Today a story is not told; it is sold”
Written by: Arham Bokaria
Edited by: Asmi Khungar
