First of all, let me clarify that this post is not the result of the weary imaginations of a disgruntled soul harbouring jealous feelings against IITs and IITians. If it serves to strengthen my point of view by giving it a more impartial tinge and if I may mention it without seeming to be a snobbish brat, I too am an alumni of one of these institutes.
I have been following rediff.com for a long time now but have lately seen an exponential increase in the number of IIT and IITian related articles on the portal. As an example, from december 1 to december 18, there have been 25 different articles on the subject which pegs the daily average of journalists, who would rather concoct a crowd-pleasing, easy to assemble article on a subject as beaten to death as the glowing exploits of IITians than doing some real research on a real topic at a healthy figure of 1.388888889 (and my calculator gave up here).
Agreed that the interest in the subject has been revived due to the scheduled Pan-IIT conference, is it just me or do others also think that all this hoopla is turning out to be another cheap example of climbing onto the bandwagon of mediocre journalism, the likes of which seem to permeate every aspect of today's society. Dear God!, the situation is bad enough with all those sensationalistic news channels bombarding us with a new breaking news every other minute. A society which manages to throw up on an average of 400 breaking news per day must surely be incredibly high on pheromones. But I am aware that this is not the case because I know that I have not seen a few accidents, some bank robberies, a dozen celebrity scandals, 2-3 government upheavels, and atleast 5 terrorist bombings on a daily basis.
Nevertheless, the point of all this rambling is that the renewed interest in IITs just seems to be an extension of the general trait of journalism which encourages reporters to write socially pleasing articles. And I thought, I had heard somewhere that news is supposed to shape social outlook rather than reflect it.
The underlying point of the matter is, 4000 IITians do not represent India. The 10% growth which the Indian economy is so hopefully looking forward to, is not one of the miracles at the hands of the IITians who comprise less than .01% of the national population. Agreed that it might be spearheaded by some of them, but the fuel that has kept burning it for last several years are the 23% of the Indian work force employed in the service industry and the 50% employed in the agriculture industry. So while it sounds nice to occasionally hear how an IITian killed a bear with his naked hands or doused a fire with his spit or ran faster then light (with light travelling in vacuum and the IITian in water), I think we have had enough. I am sure that rediff is catering well to all those parents who have a kid in 12th and would so much want to see him/her enter one of those hallowed portals and all those kids who have the misfortune of having such parents, why not start doing some real reporting for change? You know, something that meaningfully affects atleast 5% of the population and doesn't look down upon 99.99%.
I have been following rediff.com for a long time now but have lately seen an exponential increase in the number of IIT and IITian related articles on the portal. As an example, from december 1 to december 18, there have been 25 different articles on the subject which pegs the daily average of journalists, who would rather concoct a crowd-pleasing, easy to assemble article on a subject as beaten to death as the glowing exploits of IITians than doing some real research on a real topic at a healthy figure of 1.388888889 (and my calculator gave up here).
Agreed that the interest in the subject has been revived due to the scheduled Pan-IIT conference, is it just me or do others also think that all this hoopla is turning out to be another cheap example of climbing onto the bandwagon of mediocre journalism, the likes of which seem to permeate every aspect of today's society. Dear God!, the situation is bad enough with all those sensationalistic news channels bombarding us with a new breaking news every other minute. A society which manages to throw up on an average of 400 breaking news per day must surely be incredibly high on pheromones. But I am aware that this is not the case because I know that I have not seen a few accidents, some bank robberies, a dozen celebrity scandals, 2-3 government upheavels, and atleast 5 terrorist bombings on a daily basis.
Nevertheless, the point of all this rambling is that the renewed interest in IITs just seems to be an extension of the general trait of journalism which encourages reporters to write socially pleasing articles. And I thought, I had heard somewhere that news is supposed to shape social outlook rather than reflect it.
The underlying point of the matter is, 4000 IITians do not represent India. The 10% growth which the Indian economy is so hopefully looking forward to, is not one of the miracles at the hands of the IITians who comprise less than .01% of the national population. Agreed that it might be spearheaded by some of them, but the fuel that has kept burning it for last several years are the 23% of the Indian work force employed in the service industry and the 50% employed in the agriculture industry. So while it sounds nice to occasionally hear how an IITian killed a bear with his naked hands or doused a fire with his spit or ran faster then light (with light travelling in vacuum and the IITian in water), I think we have had enough. I am sure that rediff is catering well to all those parents who have a kid in 12th and would so much want to see him/her enter one of those hallowed portals and all those kids who have the misfortune of having such parents, why not start doing some real reporting for change? You know, something that meaningfully affects atleast 5% of the population and doesn't look down upon 99.99%.
6 comments:
Interesting that this should come from a X-IIITian itself.
As for the event it self, well in a land where an AishwaryaRai's visiting a remote temple with the Bachans get as much coverage as the Nuclear Deal; why do u expect rediff to be different?
Journalism ideally should be educating, fuelling public thought not shaping it.
Their job is more to report the event as it is.
Its for the society to give the importance that the news deserves. So the moral double standards of our society impells that wat sells is sold.
titillating read!
junta likes to read masala, see masala, listen to masala, and that is what is being served to them. Historically, India has been the best at producing and consuming masala.
@Anurup: !!! whats this news about Aishwarya Rai visiting a temple. I mean, have they absolutely no work at all! But on second thoughts, it is still better than US where everytime you think that the general public likes to ponder upon something atleast remotely meaningful, you are forced to change your view when you see zillion magazines making huge profits just by reporting on the dietary habits of Britney Spears or the amorous escapades of Paris Hilton.
@Phantom: I guess you are right. What goes by the name masala, goes by the name papparazzi in the west. And yes, Indian masala is world famous :)
I tink news is supposed to reflect social outlook rather than try to shape it. For example, biased and selective reporting by religiously leaning right wing newspapers in scietific & political matters is a routine matter where they tend to blend facts with fiction to shape public opinion.
As far as why rediff publishes so many articles is the question, I would say it is because there are so many people who actually read those, you are a case in point here :D as you chose to go through the stats by, I assume, browsing through their news section. As you may or may not know rediff is a US based portal and mainly caters to the reading and shopping habits of expatriate Indians. I am sure because it is an online news portal so it would have conclusive data and statisitcs about reading habits of its consumers who visit its website on a daily basis as to what kind of article they like to read most. Hence I would say the portal is just trying to save it online market share.
@Amit: I guess, there is a strange pleasure in reading sub-standard articles and then criticizing them :). But I am not ready to accept that rediff mainly targets expatriate Indians. It has too big a web presence in India to ignore the domestic reader base. Moreover, these articles are more frequent on in.rediff.com than rediff.com...
I do remember that you were the only one in batch2kb who actually had a rediff account (1%) and I would say that probably is the % with the general internet using population of india as well as everyone that I knew either used yahoo or hotmail accounts that time. With Gmail fewer and fewer ppl would now be using rediffmail anway.
Look at their advertisments and newsbytes. Their news is always nationalist and right wing very few of which is related with petty politics. They also publish far more stories than other newspapers (% wise) in matters related with national defense and security. Who would read these news reports devoid of masala except those who have forgotten the taste of it as they have lived outside the country for too long? Most of the revenue that they generate is through advertisments and sales which are clearly greared through NRI population. That is why I said rediff mainly targets expatriate Indians.
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