Breaking News or Manufacturing news ?

Hi
Last night one of the 24hr. news channels presented a question for a sms-poll :
"Does media report news or create news ?"
At last they realise what they were doing !
I have always felt that with a 24 hr. news channel, the broadcasters become hard pressed for interesting feeds, as a consequence of which they are constrained to look for "NEWS" where there's none. They latch on to any one tiny incident, blow it out of proportion, report it every hour throughout the day and have everyone giving an opinion about it , on air and off it. An example of this is yesterday's hoo-ha about the Shetty-Gere smooch. They must have played the clip 120 times . we now hear there are "large scale" protests everywhere from Varanasi to Kolar dist. by upholders of indian morality. So, more "Breaking News" with breaking glass, breaking vehicles and breaking heads over whats happening to our country .
Had not the pictures been given so much ( repeated) importance, i feel there would not have been such unnecessary damage to public property, productive man-hours and the image of our country as "a tiger marching into future."

Interestingly, that silly display of affection by Gere made front page news in today's "Times Of India", but" The Hindu" carried not even a threeline mention of it anywhere !

manjula

Dear Manju
You are absolutely right there.
A webcam in the hands of a irresponsible, newshungry TV is like nuclear arsenal in the hands of a megalomniac. I too saw this silly episode on TV and knew instantly that our conscience-keepers countrywide would swing into action. Its a pity that Gere, who created such a beautiful image by swiping his Gold Card to bing joy to a perky little gir as symbolised by the hundreds of birds being set free, should have caused Miss Shetty further problem. Her explanation has been found acceptable only by me, being a fair-minded person that I am! If he felt compelled to give his expression to his emotions, Gere could have stopped with a peck on the cheek but why such an erotic pose?
He may not have known that such a public display would not set any hearts on fire but only busses and cars in the streets of India
Sri

Dear Manju,

Glad to have you back! Yeah, i too felt that these news cdhannels really blow things out of proportion and they instigate a lot more news by doing that....a self generating cycle, i guess.
But i too felt that Gere got a little carried away in public....if he had done this in a movie, we would have gladly accepted it....but from what they showed it did look a bit too much.....poor Gere......really in trouble now!
And did u see the latest...the Virginia incident....awful na?
What's happening to this world ?

Virginia tech - awful is not the word, Sudha.
Really, whats happening to the young ?
Now we keep getting reports that the boy had showed clear signs of mental problems. Why dint anyone notice and try to help him ? Another case of not being able to see beyond I-Me-Myself ?
Imagine 32 precious lives going to waste for no fault of theirs. And it does not stop at 32, imagine what their family members have to go through.
These are the kind of moments when one starts questioning the idea of God.

Hope at least now America will wake up and do something about gun control laws.

manjula