THE SICKENING MEDIA

What is the job of the media? What is the responsibility of the media? The job of a responsible media is to put things across people exactly as they have happened, give a complete coverage of all the facts and let people decide what is correct and what is wrong. What does the Indian media (especially the news channels) do these days? The news channels do exactly the opposite. They blow everything out of proportion, make a controversial story out of it, and present only those things which give some credence to their story and hence persuade people to believe in it by showing the same audio visuals again and again. This is the sickening reality of India’s media today.

Let us put some of the happenings in the ongoing tri series involving India-Australia-Srilanka into perspective. It all started even before the series got under way. The Indian ODI team was selected after India pulled of a historic win in the Perth test. The selectors, along with Dhoni went for youth and exuberance over some of the experienced but a bit old and jaded players like Dravid and Ganguly. Infact, the only significant exclusion was Ganguly because Dravid was not there in last ODI series either and also looked out of touch in the test series. But there was this massive hue and cry created by the media over this exclusion. The news channels made stories suggesting Dhoni played politics, Dhoni didn’t want to play under the influence of former captains, that the young inexperienced team would collapse under pressure and even went to the extent of saying that the team would lose the edge as a unit (The same team is 1-0 up in the best of 3 finals!!!). When questioned about the selection, Dhoni didn’t mince words and clearly said that he wanted youngsters (who could field and run well between the wickets) on the big Australian grounds and his word was taken in the selection. When Dravid was at the helm under Coach Greg Chappell, everyone criticized Dravid for being too shy of voicing his opinion and capitulating under the pressure of Greg during team selection. But, here was a man who had his say in selection and didn’t shy away from media in accepting the same. Unfortunately, the media made him the bad boy.

Moving on, as our top 5 batsmen were not scoring enough runs in the first half of the series, Dhoni, when asked about the lack of form of top order, made a frank statement that if Viru, Sachin our top 5 get good partnerships, then it would be much easier for him and Uthappa to come down the order and play freely which was not happening in the series up to then. Again the channels stepped in to create another controversy saying that Dhoni now had Viru, Sachin on his radar, that he was now planning to get them out of the team and other similar rubbish. I couldn’t understand what actually they wanted: A diplomatic laid back captain or a straightforward frank captain…

Quite a few people had expressed concerns about Sachin’s form in the series. The harshest comment came from Sanjay Manjerekar who described Sachin as an elephant in the room whom no one had the courage to talk about and Sachin’s failure must be addressed. Just before India’s crucial match (virtual semifinal) against Srilanka, Tendulkar was interviewed by the Star Sports Team. When asked whether he was concerned about his form, he denied and I believe, made a straight dig at Manjerekar saying that sometimes people tend to react more than they should.

Tendulkar played an important innings in the match helping India reach the finals. Now instead of celebrating the fact that this young Indian team had reached the finals by playing some good cricket, one of the news channels(INDIA TV) named their half an hour post match show as ‘Dhoni Ko Tamacha’ with Dhoni’s and Sachin’s pics facing each other. The channel tried to prove that Sachin wanted to teach Dhoni a lesson. It tried to prove that Sachin’s comment in the morning was aimed at Dhoni and his knock would silence Dhoni from criticizing him (Actually Dhoni never singled out Sachin in his comments). I want to ask INDIA TV whether Sachin played that knock because he was (in their opinion) targeted by Dhoni. Was Sachin just playing for the sake of playing in the earlier matches? Was Sachin’s knock to silence Dhoni or help India reach the finals? There is no way in this wide world that INDIA TV would have an answer to these questions. That half an hour, they just went on trying to prove their baseless senseless story instead of praising the team for an emphatic victory. That was the moment I could not stop myself from going all holds barred against the media. This is something that does not just happen in cricket. It is pretty much the case in every field.

It is high time now that the media understands its responsibility and become a boon for the country, which I must say, is heading in a totally opposite direction at the moment.