ExpertDabbler

Media’s mediocrity

http://www.dinamalar.com/2005sep26/impfn.asp

Well how about this? There are some who say the media just reported whatever it saw. And added a wry commentary about equality and all. It may even be argued that its after all an event happened in Tamil Nadu and the vernacular press had every right to report this. Forget the privacy, courtesy, decency part. We dont follow what we dont understand. SO ets leave it at that.
Just as you are forming high hopes about dinamalar and its moral policing and its “freedom of expression”, have a look at this

http://www.dinamalar.com/2005sep28/impfn.asp.

For starters this did not happen in Nungambakkam or Anna Salai. This was not shot in India at all. So,What the f*** has the vernacular newspaper has got to do with this? The reasons are obvious. And we thought that double standards were reserved only for politicians.

Enough has been written about Dinamalar’s penchant for scantily clad women and then about sex surveys being conducted in England, which are available in plenty in their weekly freebie, Vaaramalar. Not to mention their agony aunt columns which talks about anything including incest. Oh, I did not realize that Dinamalar is a family newspaper. No wonder it talks about incest.

Just how celebrities suck up to media just beats me. Last week I chanced upon a Kumudam article. The story was, believe it or not, is a write-up on Mr. Mani Ratnam’s 15 yr old son. No, Nandan, his name by the way, is neither a prodigy nor a state rank holder. Basically he has done absolutely nothing to deserve 3 pages of Kumudam. He is just a normal kid like I was 14 yrs ago. He is in his 10th standard. So what if he has met P Chidambaram? He did not meet him as part of a student delegation to bring about tax reforms in the corporate sector I suppose?

The reason he was featured was this - He is the son of a celebrity couple.

The write-up had a huge photograph of him standing with his mom - just to make the right connection in the readers’ mind and a small photograph of his dad. Now, if you thought this was just a cheap attempt to fill precious magazine pages, you are wrong.

This article on Mani’s son has served as an introduction. Tomorrow, just imagine what great news it would make if he were seen with a girl of his age in an ice-cream parlor? Great scoop for sure, wouldn’t it? Later on these same magazines would go to him with a survey and then ask for his piece of wisdom and then that would set the while ball rolling like it happened with Kushboo.

This is the level of journalism that is happening nowadays in Vikatan and Kumudam who miss no opportunity to say that they are in the business for 60-70 years.
I wonder what magazines like Cinema Express has got to say nowadays?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 30th, 2005 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.