This is a plain rant as is quite evident from the title.
I am, to state it plainly, amazed and appalled at what is being dished out as front page worthy news nowadays in the print as well as the audio-visual media. The case in question is of Shilpa Shetty and the shot in the arm that her sagging career has received. The continuous nonsense that people have been subjected to can be termed as nothing but cruel torture. Guantanamo Bay probably pales in front of this!
It is not as if we have a choice. Whatever newspaper you look at and whatever news channel you turn to, it is always the same thing - poor Shilpa Shetty who has been racially abused!! Reality shows like "Big Brother" or any other show for that matter are on the lookout for gullible audiences who lap such controversies up. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were found that this show staged the whole thing. Shilpa Shetty is an actress who gets suitably remunerated for her role on that show.
Then comes our wonderful Indian government! The external affairs ministry has probably nothing else to do other than twiddling its thumbs. That seems to precisely why it jumped to protest against this "act of racism"! It does this in its official capacity and reports it to its counterpart in the UK. Taxpayer money wasted for such frivolous nonsense!! India's image in the world is that of a soft state. Doing nothing to change that image, our government now tries to look silly!
To top it all is the news item I saw just now. Shilpa Shetty's mother has called the ejection of that person who bad mouthed Shilpa "a victory of good over evil". Why, O why should the Indian public be subjected to such tripe!
Shilpa Shetty is probably using all of this to get her minutes of fame as the wonderful Indian girl who battled it out in the inhospitable environs of Big Brother! It doesn't matter that she is getting a lot of money for it! Talk about eating the cake and having it too!
The media definitely deserves to be more responsible. It can't put its business needs above professional responsibility. Newspapers with pictures of scantily clad women in its front page make brisk business indeed. They don't seem to bother that they are dumbing down a complete generation of people.
The same can definitely be said about the 24 hour news channels. Their motto seems to be : If there is no news, make it! Having some news or the other is essential for their survival. However, as I said earlier, professional responsibility is lost here.
I try to overlook as many things in the news as possible. It now looks like I don't need to pay attention at all!
No comments:
Post a Comment