Rani is pregnant with my baby

Damn! How cheap the news channels have become! Some actor farts and it is in the news. Rakhi Sawant says she likes sweets and it is in the news. And now, the mother of all junk news -a model cum actress (small time obvi) claims she is married to Abhishek Bachchan -just a day ahead of his marriage -and its all over the news. Irony of the fact is, every news channel has dedicated hours on this girl (or woman?), dug up every little bit of her history & made her the talk-of-the-town; yet reporters of every channel comment that she is doing it all for cheap publicity, for getting media attention etc. Seems like you guys are forgetting something -that you are the bloody media.

With the mushrooming of news channels, how easy it has become to gain cheap popularity! Believe me dude, if someday you feel like coming on tv, just call up Aaj Tak or any of the other channels showing similar stuff, take five shots of vodka, climb up to the roof and start a drama that you would commit suicide if Rani Mukherjee (Aish not being an option anymore) doesn't admit that she has secretly married you on so and so date in so and so mandir, so and so bhagwan ko sakshi manke (with so and so God as witness).

So why has journalism stooped to such low standards in India?A root cause analysis will give us many reasons. First, news channels have suddenly mushroomed in India from the pre-1992 days when just half an hour news per day was the norm. Now that dedicated news channel are up and running, they need 'matter' to show. Interestingly, some news channels like Aaj Tak realized that Indians -rich and poor, literate and illiterate- have a great appetite for gossip, masala news and saas-bahu type dramas. No doubt people in senior management of such channels don't give a damn to journalism -they just run channels as business houses to earn money. Media, often called the fourth pillar of democracy, needs to be run on ethical high grounds. It needs the passion more than zeal to earn money.

On second thoughts, what can these poor chaps do? Of late, there hasn't been any riot, or sex scandal. Mr. Bin Laden has been the most unkind to them, staying dormant for so long except for the occasional threatening tapes (and these tapes also have ceased to create any ripple). Natural disasters are pretty sporadic and come once in a while. In short, there is a famine of news for these guys. What can these news channels possibly show to fill up the 24*7 time schedule?

Truth is, there is never a dearth of sensible news in this country. Thousands of people in this country are dying of hunger while many others are dying to narrate tales of injustice meted out to them. Thousands of burning issues don't come to public eye because of dearth of investigative journalism. Biggest threat to India as a nation today are the maoists who have securely rooted themselves all through from the north east down south to Andhra Pradesh. I bet very few people in this country know the real extent of threat these people are to us. And even fewer are aware of the maoist-politician nexus. In absence of public opinion on such sensitive issues, the government sits tight and neglects these sensitive issues.