Farcical Media…
Sometime back, I happened to read this article that appeared on The BBC Website, deriding the Indian media for the dumb way it sometimes acts. But the Media, unfortunately, do not seem to have taken any lessons from such criticisms. On the contrary they seem to be basking in such abashments.
Take this for example. For the past couple of days, the news channels were full of space shuttle Atlantis’s return. While it can be news enough to take some prime time on the CRT, the way the Indian news channels drummed up that adventure makes one really sick. And they do this for only one reason. Sunita Williams.
Yesterday night, the time when the shuttle was to rendezvous with good old Mother Earth, the news channels were in a new high. Every news channel was literally filled with the story of Sunita Williams and her “purported” Indian connections. It was sheer madness. I mean, lets get the facts straight.Sunita is not an Indian as Kalpana Chawla was (or atleast not as Indian as she was). She is an American Citizen by birth and she has lived like an American so far. She rarely, if ever, visited India. But these channels project her as if the shuttle mission was the only time she ever went outside India. And get this. If we go by her origins,Sunita Williams is not an Indian, she is an Indian-Slovenian.
So coming back to these news channels. The shuttle mission is not something that is happening for the first time. Even when the shuttle went to space the last time around, there were glitches. But the news was not treated with such importance back then as it is being done now. And mind you, it is the Indian media that is raising such a hue and cry over this. Take a look at one of the American or British news channels. To all of them, this is just another event that’s happening around the globe. But our media ?
One of them runs a timer that gives the time left before “Suni returns home”. Another one ran a small window that showed the trajectory of the shuttle, real time. Another one, again, ran a timer. Another channel was running a 3 hour show explaining about the space shuttle Atlantis, Sunita Williams and how she made her Samosas, among others. They called up a few of her very distant relatives, distant because of the distance between India and America, who separately claimed that it was he/she who taught Sunita how to make her samosas right. No wonder they filled up the 3 hours. Not to forget the timer.
Look at them. They rarely mentioned the name of any other crew member.They did not go there for just for star gazing, did they! They had equally important roles . But accoridng to our media, noone else was on that mission except our Beti. While I am very proud of the fact that someone who has her roots in India is going to space, the news channels made me hate myself for that. They ask 6 year old kids what they thought about Sunita. I mean, bring some sense into the news,man…
This has been happening for quite sometime though. Like for example, the way the news channels fell over each other in the rush to cover Abhishek Bachchan’s marriage was quite appaling indeed. Worse, they had a live coverage of, not the marriage, but the entrance to the marriage venue (called Prathiksha, which the channels mentioned with such off-handedness as though it was a name every Indian should know, like Taj Mahal or Rashtrapati Bhavan…). And one of them carried a live coverage of a small time model who attempted to commit suicide cos apparently junior Bachchan had cheated on her.It was the only channel which even carried that news that day, leave alone a live coverage. (To be honest, this channel carries loads of shit in the guise of a live coverage for events which no sane Indian will ever turn his head to).
The way these people cover this shuttle’s return to earth, you cannot help but think that they are secretly hoping that something sinister should befall that machine so that they can again fall over each other, covering the whole episode live, doling out exaggerated figures, call in a bunch of ’so called’ experts, and pass off another 4 hours coolly. God forbid…
And mooting a non existent debate between two movie giants, the Big B and Rajni,when each showered praised on the other and acknowledged that the other star was the greatest, is something only our media can manage.
And ‘breaking news’ first to the reader is another rat race. Whether they indeed do it or not, each channel claims to have broken the same news at the same time. A classic being Kingfisher getting a dtake in Air Deccan and lo, there we had NDTV Profit, CNBC TV18, CNN-IBN and Times Now, each claiming that it was the channel to break that news to us. Now where is the credibility that they are supposed to provide ? Don’t ask me…
The feather in the cap was when NDTV ”broke the news” that theatres have began booking tickets for Rajni’s Sivaji. I don’t complain though. It was Thalaivar’s movie for which they were plugging…
Adios…
yes ezhil.. you are right absolutely.. they do business.. nothing but business aiming only at profit…one possible reason for this could be the cut throat competition this industry faces… this is one special case where competition led to deterioration of quality..
Nall irukku namma polappu…
That was a real good one. Your language and diction is impeccable.
Your blog rate is increasing now a days n you are becoming a pro in it…
Keep it going…
nice comments
god save india
and indian politics
they make APJ and dayanidhi maran out
even god cant save india from bullshit politicins
hey u dont have any other job than comments
anyway i like it very much
nalla eluthareenga
aana kadaisila avar movieku mattum support pannitengalae…
@kulothungan,madhi, bharani
Thanks for pitching in
@ sun
but seriously, thalaivar maadhiri innoruthar vara mudiyaadhunga…take a look at this post..
When you have very little work to do, u can only do something like this to prevent urself frm getting bored to death
http://sudhishkamath.blogspot.com/2007/06/sivaji-review-of-reviews.html
cheers !
hey.. who is this sudhish kamath.. do i need like a film because he likes the film or because he has written a positive review about that.. first change your attitude..
actually i wanted to mention about the importance these news channels bestowing on the movie sivaji… thappu thappu dhaan … whether it is sivaji or sunita williams..
see da. nobody says that you should like a film cos someone says something positive about it. Sivaji was a movie that I liked, and mentioned it only for the purpose of humour. I guess you missed the sarcasm when I said NDTV broke that news. If I had thought it was right, I wouldn’t have made a mention of it in the 1st place.
But you should accept the fact that Sivaji was the movie which turned the nation’s attention away from Bollywood, and I am glad the media atleast accepted the fact that Bollywood alone doesn’t constitute Indian cinema.
and btw, Sudhish Kamath is a reporter for The Hindu and is a well known Film Critic..
yes.. of course the nation turned its head towards sivaji.. the result.. the skyrocketing ticket prices.. where you could see daily workers and rickshawpullers fighting for the first day show with all their monthly earnings.. and you know who gained and how much they are going to gain.. also we witnessed one man standing above all the good tamil cinemas and quality actors..and do you think it serves any good…
Again you are way off the mark. That’s why it is imperative that you go through that blog post so that you’ll stop criticizing Rajni Kanth. How do you justify your statement that he is not a quality actor ? Have you seen any of his earlier movies ? If not, I suggest you do so.He has proved enough already that he can act.
And the ticket prices would have been high anyway, media coverage or not. It’s Thalaivar’s movie man, not any other dime-a-dozen actor’s ! What do you expect ! Chandramukhi’s tickets were sold for a whopping Rs.2000 in Madras. And it never had any media attention…So don’t blame the media’s impact on the nation for the ticket prices.
so we have to accept whatever he writes or hindu writes????
Who told you to ? I put that up to justify my point, not your point. And the post is fair enough
actually i know i am way off the mark.. the post is about news channels and we are speaking about rajni..
did i criticize rajni. i think i didn’t.. and his past good movies ?? please put that aside..
i just said one man standing above all the kollywood… what if the whole world thinks rajni alone is tamil cinema..
and if you say media hype doesn’t play any role in ticket prices then i beg to differ..if not for media hype there wont be senior managers in cts pallikaranai vacating the office on friday afternoon with thousand and five hundred rupees tickets in their hand..there wont be it professionals standing in long queues in pvr mall,blore or there wont be three days housefull board in gurgaon..
you quoted sudhish kamath and you feel vindicated… that should be the way how people should justify their positions….hmmmm…
wat has the media got to do with a senior manager who pays huge bucks for a ticket ? again your arguments are inconsistent. wat if they are die hard rajni fans ? you have to understand that the movie generated a lot of hype right from the moment it was signed. U had all the big guns coming together to produce a movie, and the expectations are usually high. The media covered the entire event only for about a week before the release of the movie. And there was virtually no media attention at all before that. But ppl were all ears for any information on Sivaji. Why do you think it was so ? Get the facts straight da. Tickets were being sold for high rates even a month before the release. I know a friend who bought tickets for 700 bucks for the 1st day show, at least 3 weeks b4 the movie’s release, courtesy a fan club.
Houseful boards in gurgaon ? Long queues in PVR ? Man, this is Thalaivar’s movie , for Heaven’s sake. Get that into your mind first.
As for Sudhish Kamath, I think he is a very good critic to use his review as a means for justifying my argument, just as the way I used the BBC article for consolidating my stand on this issue. Why not I say…
leave sudhish kamath…
if you say media hype doen’t play a part in ticket prices we shall agree to disagree…
unakku thalaivar.. enakku avaru oru saadharana actor.. i dont see any qualities which will make me call him a thalaivar…for me thalaivar is a very big word and a special word…..
I still say media doesn’t have anything to do with the ticket prices. If so, every Hindi movie ticket would have cost Rs.1000, cos they plug for all of them. Do you agree ?
And for me, Rajni is thalivar…
Amen…
Hi ezhil and balaji,
I went thru this argument and found that there are lot of inconsistencies.First of all, i would like to corroborate the fact that sudhish kamath is a biased critic and his views are not worth mentioning here.
What if rajini is acting in a movie…does it mean the world has to stand still and gape at it? The movie is hyped up just to boost up the profits…. Media is doing business out here and it is just another chance for them to freeze all fanatics like u in front of their channels. U are mere prey to it!…. All this means zilch to the common man and it is not even worth discussing here……
without media hype a rajni movie would cost rs 1000 for the first day for ordinary tamil rajni fans. with media hype a rajni movie would cost rs 1000 for all the cinema fans for many days after the movie has released. So i strongly believe the media hype as a cheap strategy to boost the profits. and rajni for tamils is different from sharukh or amitabh or amir for hindi fans. this naturally explains why hindi movie tickets dont cost that much even after all the hype.
@Deva
When a newspaper like Hindu employs someone like Sudhish to write a write a review, you should know better than to rubbish him. True, your opinion about the movie holds, but I guess unless his reviews had some credibility, no newspaper will allow him to write for it. While I do accept the fact that the Media makes a business out of everything (that was the subject of this post isn’t it), I would strongly oppose your disparaging views on Rajni’s movies. When people as far as USA and UK are celebrating his movies, I think that speaks volumes about his stature as a movie star. And the world DID stand still and gape, didn’t it. Point made.
@kulo
Are you suggesting that AVM paid money to all those news channels to plug Sivaji ? Rajni Kanth is an icon. If you are denying it, you are denying the inevitable. And the Rajni mania is something that we all, atleast I, grew up with. His movies speak for him, his stature speaks for him, his critics speak for him. When a product is in demand, the price goes up. That is the supply-demand equation.
i am not denying that possibility, it is after all business.
rajni is an icon and all those things are quiet obvious. and you need not get into that again and again.
naturally there would be a demand for rajni movie and that was made to increase many folds, thanks to media.
well… I think the problem with u is crass generalization… just because a newspaper employs some one and makes him write reviews… it doesn’t necessarily mean he is a good critic.. u have got to really read the reviews and decide on it…. i have done it.. i know he is biased.. the same thing holds good for ur other argument… Most of those who watch the movie in USA and UK are indians or their counterparts..the rest of them wathced the movie because of the hype generated by these buggers….That’s all to it… it isn’t like they have been following his movies.Point made.
than you will also like these links..:
http://www.nwmindia.org/Newsmakers/Sevanti.htm
http://presstalk.blogspot.com/
I would like to comment that, most of the Indian Media is politically biased and immature, especially when it comes to BJP rules states they are surprisingly misleading the readers and viewers in this country. Infact, in my true knowledge BJP ruled states are doing well in many aspects if not all compare to other states.We know that there is not a single news paper or visual media which is not run by a family in this country.If you consider CNN-IBN it is the most visibly biased visual media channel ever India have seen, so obsessed with Gandhi dynasty,Rajdeep and his Wife Sagarika is totally after Narendra Modi and BJP. If Modi sneezes it is a headline story in CNN-IBN!.if you consider NDTV PRANNOY ROY is trying his best to be a pseudo-secularist. But if we closely watch each of their programs it is increasingly getting biased and a person with common sense can understand what is going on behind the scene.Prannoy Roy and Barkha Dutta believes they are the only intellectuals left in this country!.If you look at the news papers, we know the history of Indian express. What role Goenka played in Indian politics utilizing his family run news paper business.Vir Sanghvi of Hindustantimes ( Late KK Birla is a staunch congressman) is all the way praising Sonia as if his career itself is pledged for that cause. A fair exemption can be made for Times of India ,I don’t know If I am correct.Otherwise there is a serious conspiracy going on this country by these new founded intellectual Pseudo Secularists.We must be able to differentiate what is right and what is wrong as these channels are targeting young urban population mixing news with bit of masalas and Tabloid especially the Hip-hop culture. They are not aware that their credibility and neutrality is being lost infront of the masses.In India Media ethics is a neglected truth.It is the era of family run businesses for personal and political gains.In the name of freedom of speech they are misleading the people to make thier own profit and gains.Who care where this will lead the country to?????