Since the last year or months, the following which I can
easily remember used to hog the television prime time 24 x 7.
1)
Arvind Kejriwal waving some papers in front of
television camera’s accusing Rovert Vadra of some land fraud .
2)
The whole Tarun Tejal incident
3)
The Devyani incident. The Indian government had asked
the USA embassy about details of people working in the US school. Prima Facia
there was some suspicion of visa fraud.
4)
A prominent TV anchor screaming that “India needs to
know” and this channel will not rest until ....
None of the above has come remotely close to a logical
closure. All have been replaced with some new topic that can hog headlines
and grab viewer attention. Before the days of television, the newspaper was
the main inputs for news and commentary. There was a clear separation of editorial
integrity and business needs and rarely
was there any compromise between the 2.
Editors were celebrities in their own right.
It is true that the
prime goal of any business is to do
business, but by and large this is intertwined with some other objective. The 4th estate is one of the pillars of democracy and once this missions is forgotten, a part of
democracy is compromised.
It is something akin to whay is happening in medicine. I don’t
know if this is related or unrelated to my above point. My friend and physician Dr. B C Rao sums it up very well in his blog http://badakerecrao.blogspot.in/2012_05_01_archive.html
