..a lazy Sunday and Mr. Murdoch!

Its 8’o clock in the morning and a boring Sunday looms large in front of my eyes. There are plans galore but like every other Sunday; they are expected to be mere plans, I am sure! Did I murmur about some pending tasks? Forget it! No material event is going to take place with this windy weather and a lazy morning. My overworked and should I say overcooked brain need some rest. Still thinking, what to do! Mind is blank, like a hollow crater going deep into Earth’s surface! But then, why don’t I pen down something. I, however, am yet to discover the meaning of ‘something’. Ok, let me start with ‘something’ about ‘news and journalism’. Big stuff, you think! But, before I do that, a little admission is required that I am ‘no- journo’! I am instead a ‘sojourner’, a plebian! So you see, categorizing oneself as a common man is the safest bet when putting across one’s point of view without much trouble!
Now, let me give a preview of what happened in UK few days back. It is appeared that News Corp International founded by media mogul Rupert Murdoch is all at sea defending their stance against an allegation of a phone tapping incident. Apparently, the voicemails of the murdered lady are illegally accessed by ‘News of the world’, a weekly national tabloid of UK and a subsidiary of NewsCorp. Few termed it as yellow journalism, sensitizing an issue by hook or by crook; few just termed it as balderdash! The question that arises out of it is how deep you can go to unearth news. On one hand, you have a responsibility to provide the correct news, and on the other hand, you need to be ethically correct. Now, we can have a big debate on what ethics is, but that’s something I am not into for the present context. In short we can say that someone’s freedom fighter is someone’s terrorist. Ethics depends on the context on which the act has taken place. Most importantly, one can’t subvert the context to suit his ethical belongings. It is a foregone conclusion, it seems, that the act of phone-tapping of a deceased was unethical. But would the conclusion be same if the tapping would throw some more light on the killing? Question to ponder indeed. If the news is correct, why do you bother about how that is reaching you? We have the example of wiki leaks to support us.
But, this is Rupert Murdoch, the mogul, the caliph, as Robert Fisk pointed out in one of his article in ‘The Independent’. What could possibly happen to him? He has got away with incidents like these before. He believes in all sorts of ways to create news and thus make a sensation. That’s the way he is for last 40 years or more. This incident however has dented his image. Stories of Mr Murdoch ‘held head in hands’ while apologizing to bereaved Dowler parents have sullied his I-am-the-invincible image! He is no Elliot Carver, the megalomaniac in famous bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies, But he is every bit of Gordon Gekko of Wall Street fame, I believe. It’s quite apt that he bought The ‘Wall Street’ journal then! Remember Gekko’s famous dialogue, ‘I create nothing, I own’ and Mr Murdoch fits perfectly into it. But as you know those who live by the sword, die by the sword. News Corp targeted celebrities and now they are the target themselves. Déjà-vu you see! He lost the lucrative BskyB bid too in the process.
So, what is that an Indian looking at the UK media for a news? Don’t we have any news of our own? Oh yeah! We do have journalism all right, but most of them are not in the caliber of our counterparts in UK or US in my opinion. We have something called ‘breaking news’, listening to which you‘ll start breaking your head instead! We hardly have any news properly dished out for a mature audience. When you have TV crew and journos asking, ‘how do you feel’ or ‘Do u feel angry’ after all these bomb blasts, you know what I am talking about. Now I am deliberately putting print and visual media under the same gallows for the simple reason that target audience in both cases are more or less same. Yes, foreign media houses follow yellow journalism in many cases but they have serious journalist too who enthrall the audience with their pens and words, whereas the proportion of yellow journalism in India has reached stratospheric height. There are few though, responsible ones, including Dr. Pronoy Roy, Karan Thapar, Pritish Nandy , Vir Sangvi, Rajdeep Sardesai, N. Ram et all. They may not have an empire like the Caliph, but they have it in them to build a structure of mature journalism.
What was started as a boring morning has turned into a full-blown media-bashing! No, not bashing, I correct myself. It’s just a point-of-view of a common man who loves to eat good dishes and read responsible news. Nothing more! Now you see why I disassociated myself from being a journo to a ‘sojourner’ initially? It’s because, being a journo is tough job and I need a whole lot of introspection to do before I become one, if I ever!