Irresponsible Media

This week, a small-time magazine, published from New Delhi, which of course has been infamously known for investigative journalism, carried a scoop on Hasan Ali, the alleged money-launderer, exactly opposing the evidences collected by ED, IT, and other government agencies, and delivered its verdict that Ali is either a conman or a bluff-master and various high-valued transactions carried out from his Swiss bank accounts, as claimed by government agencies, have no corroborative evidences, while yesterday the same convicted revealed that what the black money issue looks from the surface is even much deeper and dangerous. By claiming that Ali also disclosed five other accomplices among which four are politicians and the other one is an oil magnate from Russia. Now the moot question is why that magazine ventured into a falsified media trial and clouded readers' mind with misinformation and plotted a counter-investigative story seemingly motivated by political interests of allegedly involved parties? Doesn't it tantamount to a contempt of judiciary for dissecting a case that is subjudice and overriding the facts, and a breach of trust with readers for publishing an undeniably pulp fiction and suppressing the truth? There are many such fictional stories concocted by media everyday at the behest of political leadership, administration, and even for personal motives. However, the gullible readers hardly delve deeper into the intent of the story because they blindly believe that media act as a watchdog in a democracy and whatever they publish, air, or broadcast are the ultimate truth. Remember my fellow readers, here is a severe caution for you. Next time you see a magazine cover with tantalizing punchline or a television news program tagged “breaking news” or “exclusive report”, don't fail to utilize your own intelligence before being swayed away by the false propaganda.

So why do some media tread this dangerous path and act contrary to their fundamental responsibilities?To understand this, you need to understand the business model of media. Worldwide media entities, be it print, web, or broadcast, bank majorly on the volume of advertisements and partially on selling the content. When ad revenue becomes insignificant then they try to adopt the patronage of political parties, government agencies, and business houses to sustain the running of their business. Then a dangerous nexus gets planted and what comes out from that ally is a deliberate co-creation of consent manufacturing syndrome that contagiously infects the susceptible mind of millions of readers, for the larger vested interest of the patron. And the previously cited Hasan Ali scoop is an illegitimate offspring of the marriage between media and politics.

Let's delve into another exciting scoop of this week. Lancet, a famous medical journal published from UK, carried a revealing story on “superbug in Delhi's tap water”, which has finally attracted the attention of Indian medical and scientific communities and Delhi government as well. The fact of the matter is that Lancet team could able to trace out some water samples being allegedly originated from Delhi and tested the quality in some lab and concluded that the sample contains traces of a superbug. And all this study and experiment was funded by an international pharmaceutical company that has already discovered some drugs to treat this kind of superbugs. By now it must be clear to you as to why that journal conducted such experiments and published that story. This is a classic case of media's illicit coupling with business group. The intent of this story was to create furor among people of the second largest populous country in the world so that an artificial necessity for the remedy can be manufactured via a trusted medical journal. What could be a smart marketing gimmick than this? But all these marketing tricks don't work always unfailingly.

Now the essence of this debate is that those media entities which are constantly hinged on the belief that they can manufacture consent and can work as opinion leaders in society should understand the ground realities of readership acceptance to a plotted story. People are not living in information silos. Every moment they are exposed to various other media to verify information, they are well-informed readers. Bullying the readers or audiences could be a dangerous proposition for their sustenance in media business.