Lies and journalism
By the time you read this you will know who is India’s next prime minister. However I am writing this at 8 am on 16th May. CNN IBN is not a channel of first choice – especially when there is an election. However while flipping channels I came across this channel where Rajdeep Sardesai was doing an election special.
He was introducing his team…and he took us to meet Mr. Veeraraghavan at Ms. Jayalalitha’s house. There was a “Pujari” who was doing a pooja. Mr. Veeraraghavan (not sure about his name, he was wearing a blue shirt). He asked the Pujari what he was doing.
The Pujari said (in perfect Tamil) – I DO THIS POOJA EVERYDAY. IT IS FOR THE BENEFIT OF MANKIND. I ALSO PRAY FOR JAYALALITHA’S WELL BEING.
However the journalist wanted to please his boss (perhaps Rajdeep gets impressed with his own prediction) and said “Yes Sir the Pujari is praying for good results for Jayalalitha!
It reminds me of my friend Hari Menon who worked with many prestigious news magazines. He once told me “Do not confuse me with the facts – I have decided to do the story….ha ha ha
Ravinder Makhaik
There is a candid confession that I can make.
Mass communication / Journalism does inflate the ego and gives us the flase perception that we know more than what the common man does.
Yet again, the voter fooled the ‘Press’
Like in the 2004 election, this time too all journalists who had taken sides and like
astrologers made forecasts had egg on their face.
Complicity of the India elections only proves that psepology is fast losing its ability to match what the astrologers forecast.
However the ability to package all that went about as election news did attract sufficient eyeballs to spike up the slumping add revenues.