~ Generalization is the problem ~

Generalization is the problem. People more often than not make such statements. Watch this video where Reza Aslan takes on the Bill Maher and the studio anchors of CNN.

Aslan, at this point pretty annoyed with Lemon and co-anchor Alisyn Camerota’s consistent mischaracterizations of his words, explained, “Islam doesn’t promote violence or peace. Islam is just a religion, and like every religion in the world, it depends on what you bring to it. If you’re a violent person, your Islam, your Judaism, your Christianity, your Hinduism, is going to be violent.”

Why can't media do their ground work and get their facts rights and not painting everyone with a same brush. The media's role is crucial in communicating facts rather than interpreting it and propagating an agenda.

Aslan has spoken against the extremists rules of Saudi Arabia. When he points out,"Saudi Arabia our closest ally  has beaheaded 19 people nobody seems to care or talk about it because Saudi Arabia sorta preserves our national interests." The news anchors don't have a response to it rather they switch to what Benjamin Netanyahu had to say in UN assembly.

Such is the foreign policy of Western Nations when it comes to taking a universal stance against human atrocities. ISIS beheading is a problem for everyone. While Saudi Arabia carrying out beheading in the name of justice isn't a problem for any? 

H/T: Salon 

~ News traders ~

Gone are the days where journalists used to report news AS IS. These days they trade news based on who pays them ( the media owners to be precise). I know it is broad acquisition against all, but that's how I view them these days. The numbers of journalists who actually report news is quite few compared to the number of media companies that have grown in the past decade across India.

Thanks to Social Media & other alternate news site which provide a different perspective to abused, TRP seeking, continual *BREAKING NEWS* on every mainstream news channel, be it regional or national.

Public Service Broadcasting trust and Prasar Bharti Corporation have come together to produce a documentary on #PaidNews in Indian media. 
Note: This documentary is nearly 3 years old, but very relevant even today.

After watching it, you realise that many cases have not been taken to it's logical end by the Media. Watch what the Sports Journalists has to say about the media's role on IPL

40:53

it's happening life feel clock in the morning and still going on

41:00

the media which had been going gaga over the IP 0 for three years

41:05

sadly did a somersault a day after the times likes to serve the Baltimore these

41:09

for scams on the news all yesterday the Enforcement Directorate is doing

41:12

everything

41:13

to drag him back to India and face the charges said

41:19

it's like upto order readers or your viewers

41:23

I like a herd you you them in one direction could one day

41:26

and southerly when they actually you're getting exposed

41:29

who were exposed also in this the people who had not call their viewers

41:34

I'm sure they've really don't hesitate to ask was reading newspapers are those

41:38

really P weekend as

41:40

the foot three years you told us a different story know all of a sudden you

41:44

are

41:45

picking a somersault and saying everything is on the border

41:49

this man are about to %uh this poor River you for these two years

Following are some of them which I regularly follow:
News Laundry
Media Crooks
Media Nama
The News Minute

Which alternative sites do you visit on a daily basis for your news? Do share them. 

Source: News Laundry

~ Media blacks out Snowden interview ~

This past Sunday evening former NSA contractor Edward Snowden sat down for an interview with German television network ARD. The interview has been intentionally blocked from the US public, with virtually no major broadcast news outlets covering this story. In addition, the video has been taken down almost immediately every time it’s posted on YouTube.

~ Our own doing ~

This week we saw nature's fury at Kedarnath, Uttarakhand. According to the CAG report tabled in April, the state lacks an effective disaster management system to tackle such disasters.

~ Kedarnath Temple 1953 ~

~ Kedarnath Temple 19 June 2013 ~

I feel this highlights how we Indians approach life & live. Most of us, live by reactions than pro-actions. Instead of addressing problem in an holistic manner, we tend to wake &  fire-fight only when we have disasters on our hands. 

Samarth Mungali, CEO of TadpoleStore, has a very thoughtful post on the disaster.

"…People driven by greed and not need, started plundering their own land. A land which was their existence. 

All this while nature coped, but there’s a limit to tolerance. It’s natural. What was done had to be restored. And thus in a frame of minutes nature took the matter in it’s own hands and cleaned the slate that we had made dirty with our scribbling.

What has happened is a message from nature to stop, to amend. We have been wrong and it is we who are to correct. 

I sincerely hope that in the pretext of redevelopment of the devastated, the same mistakes are not done again. Where the structures have been erased, none should come again. It might sound uncommercial but then…"

Anand Sankar has an interesting post as well.

The devastation caused by Monsoon 2013 in Uttarakhand and to a lesser extent in Himachal Pradesh has been predictably covered by television studios based out of New Delhi. This flood has literally flowed into the lap of the television news media, who can feed their half-baked drivel to people across the country who are anxiously tuning in to get some titbits of information about loved ones trapped in the mountains. While there has been a lot of clamour for a speedy rescue effort, it sorely misses the point when it comes to ground reality. This is another incident which will go down in the history of disasters in India, as one that could have been prevented. 

Do read the 5 points which Anand makes.

As the Media & Desktop-activist, would now go on dissecting at length as to what went wrong; who could be held accountable for this; how it could have been avoided; Atheists asking the very presence of God; et al.  It is very much our own doing.

Instead of developing State units for handling any emergency events, we seem to be always banking on our Armed Forces. My salutations to the men & women of Armed Forces who have always ready for any contingency at any part of the country.

Photographs source: TadpoleStore blog.

~ News is entertainment ~

Post the Doordarshan era when the Govt of India allowed private players to broadcast, we initially had a bouquet of sports & entertainment channels. As far as the News channels were concerned, back in late 90s we had - DD, Zee News & Aaj Tak. The alternative source of news were magazines - The Outlook, The Week, India Today & regional cousins - and traditional Newspapers.

Step into 21st Century, we have 120 News channels operating across India. Of these 120 channels, guess about 5 English channels are watched by most urban population, discounting the Regional news channels. 

Thanks to these channels, am disillusioned by how information is feed to us & at times they have constant supply of *Breaking News*. Thanks to FDI &  politicians / political parties who want a medium to reach out to the masses, we now have many of them who own or control some of these channels. Most of these channels are biased towards a specific party, religion or an issue. Very rarely do we see these channels take a neutral stance &  get the bottom of an issue. 

After the Radiagate exposè, I lost faith with some of the main stream media professionals {& their organizations} whose names have appeared in the deal making. I feel the role of media today has changed to that of a *Middleman* who brokers deals between different political parties, business men, corporations than their primary objective of delivery quality information to the people of the current affairs. My view holds good w.r.t Indian media only.

I have been watching Madhu Trehan's episodes today morning & agree with her points. Wonder how those anchoring the shows fail to miss the obvious. I wish those Media professionals watch Madhu's show & take it as feedback about their work & bring some change. Have been following the alternative media - bloggers or websites - which cover/offers another perspective to the main stream media. Some of them which I frequently visit are:

Open The Magazine

The Caravan

Kafila

Churmuri

Media Crooks

News Laundry

Faking News *Satire 

Move over bloggers or websites, we now have  realtime crowd-sourced news being covered by people across the globe powered by Twitter. Any major event {Political | Sporting | Festival | Product Launches} or Catastrophe being delivered instantaneously with videos & pictures. This breaks the hold of mainstream media on coverage of events. The below pictures were taken by Andrew Kitzenberg, in the night when Tsarnaev brothers had a show down with police.

Here it’s clear to see the brothers taking aim and firing on the officers. (Taken at 12:47:57AM)

This is a zoomed in view from the last image. The red circle highlights the pressure cooker bomb that was used just moments after this photo was taken. These are the only pictures which I have come across on the internet captured by Andrew. For first hand account of the event witnessed by Andrew visit here

However, the normal public do not have access to information when it comes to Govts or Corporations. That's where we bank on the these Media Corps to deliver news AS IS versus interpreting or transforming before reaching us.

We have hacktivist style of news reporting from YourAnonNews & WikiLeaks. Even though their means of obtaining information is not considered ethical by majority their intent isn't *always* wrong. From the recent Boston bombings, we have seen online vigilantism which caused a lot of rumour & chaos in the already stressed environment. This is one of the major drawbacks of digital world when data is available for everyone to piece together & offer their own versions.

One of the politicians I admire is Mr Obama. How I wish our PM Mr Manmohan Singh shared some wit or at least spoke, at times, when it mattered. Enjoy this talk, Obama taking digs at the entire media during his speech at the White House Correspondent’s dinner.

Additional reading: A week inside India's media boom {FT} | Inside the Anonymous Hacking File on the Steubenville 'Rape Crew' {The Atlantic} | THE LESSONS OF STEUBENVILLE {The NewYorker} | Breaking news is broken {Slate} | Hey Reddit, Enough Boston Bombing Vigilantism {The Atlantic} | Security alert: notes from the frontline of the war in cyberspace {The Guardian} | The trolls among us {NYT}

Update 13 May 2013

Anubha Bhonsle has a very good write up on how Twitter plays a role in how we consume news & also the responsibility of the journalists to get their basics right & provide meaningful context to the raw data. Do read 'News in the time of Twitter' on News Laundry. 

There is no denying that social media platforms can today spread information and misinformation far quicker than they would have spread a decade ago. The problem though isn’t with technology. The problem is many of us have all but abandoned standards of good reporting, the very basics. The need of the hour is a reporter who will shape a narrative in a cacophony of noise, conversation and abundant content around him/her or on the social web. A reporter who will dig, question, unearth and make the linkages.

Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter has been quoted as saying, “We provide the information. That’s when we hand off the baton to journalists, to provide context.”

~ Question onself ~

The media dubbed Falak as “India’s Baby.” Now the young woman became “India’s Daughter.” With the passage of time, we all move on. 

Paul Beckett, WSJ bureau head in Delhi, has nailed it on the head in his article 'How much more can India take?' last two paras.

"All that will take engagement at a time when the overwhelming temptation for many will be to fume on Twitter then mentally withdraw.

Politicians must engage, too. And, if they don’t, they must be punished in the only way that they appear to understand: Removal at the ballot box, where voters have a recurring chance to prove that they don’t forget."

Applies to each one of us including self. As my friend, Anand Patil, says we all are arm-chair activists who live within our comfort zones to have an opinion and speak about it on various mediums - Twitter or Facebook or writing a Blogpost. 

Besides the outrage, what is my contribution to the society? A question to self.
— J (@Vjuneesh) December 29, 2012

Vjuneesh has a good thought. Contemplate & decide what you can do to make the situation better in life.