News and News!!

Living in India we have mostly known peace as a state of being for our country and as a nation have managed to stay away from geopolitical conflicts dominant in some countries and influenced by other countries. Although in alignment with, the order of the world right now, predictably the status quo of peace had to be destroyed, with an act of terrorism so horrific in its barbaric brutality, communal in it’s essence and all the while palpable with visceral hatred.

What follows is a nation in uproar led by a decisive prime minister with his own steel image , directs a supreme show of strength across the border and just like that we are at “War”. With this backdrop if you happened to switch on your television or your handheld devices to the news channels domestically what would greet you would not be news broadcaster giving information in a monotone. Rather a team of highly agitated and wound-up people with massive AI generated videography of war like situations accompanied by sirens blaring in the backdrop. A scene meant not to calm one down but rather amp up the agitation in your home, in your heart and in the country. The only aim is to dramatise the news with multiple creative liberties and a threadbare connection to the facts if any.

As I write this, the war has ended and a ceasefire exists but what stays with me from this whole ordeal is the vivid memory of sitting in the darkness at about 10 in the night during a blackout with the TV turned on to a national media broadcaster giving so much information one after the other of either bombs fallen or bombs dropped, fallen aircrafts, captured pilots, air attacks on cities, sea vessels docked so on and so forth complete with visuals, in just a matter of two hours. To me who sat glued to the television set it was most compelling and I believed it, all of it , the war, the bombings and the scare that they were selling.

Cut to the next day not having slept a wink, only to find out as the day progressed that not one but all the bits of news were fake and just a cheap tactic to catch eye balls and increase TRPs. More than the war I was left outraged at this total disregard of journalistic ethics at such a sensitive time for the country and its citizens. At a time when confusion and ambiguity blankets the nation and we need news agencies to report the realities of the situation, what we get is blatant pedaling of fake news aligning with their own agendas with little consideration to the facts or the fear they are selling.

To all this, my two bits: in this news climate always take your news with a pinch of salt, no matter where you get it from- a national news channel, a whatsapp  group, social media or even your partner; as all news may not be fake news but all news is definitely not Real news.