‘The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers’
– Thomas Jefferson
Few days ago, I read an invitation on my college notice board to a fest. As I was going through all the events it had, I noticed the topic of debate which was ‘Dimsums vs Samosa’. Topic was really worth looking forward to and I felt motivated to participate and so, I registered myself. I reached home, started writing and soon I realized that I was in the dilemma of writing this debate from either sides.
A citizen of India can describe India well, its culture, its heritage, its tradition and other pros and cons. But what if I wanted to describe United States Of America, without whose news, no newspaper prints its daily editions.
What all do I really know about it, Christmas and President Barack Obama and effects of activities the US Government on our nation.
Similarly, China what all does my mind processor possess about it? How its army is larger than ours? 1962 Indo-Sino war or how momos (dimsums) have conquered the Indian snack market and how we posses a threat from this nation. I felt like am able to see only half of everything and if I was going to favor China then the question was how can I support a nation about which I have gained knowledge from Wikipedia?
Then I realized how and why was I filled with just half of everything. I went through various newspapers and surfed umpteen number of news channels and found how much importance is given to news of nations like Sudan, Germany, etc. or how many of us are aware of the fact that countries like Djibouti or Saint Kitts and Nevis even exist.
Questions like their politics, culture, economy and law were all over my mind. I began with my search in all directions for a medium of media which provides updates of all the nations with a rationale view irrespective of its power in terms of how it can harm our nation. Unfortunately, I ended up with the news of either United States Of America or nations like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq.
Going global with news, in the past few years, was a very difficult task, even though there is huge competition in media, which has also commercialized and sensationalized it, but instead of quality, the media is producing quantity.
‘Journalism is what we see and what we believe but what if it makes us half deaf and half dumb.’ Why do we not have knowledge of the complete world. The 195 countries that it has?
But then my search finally rewarded me with a name ‘Al Jazeera’ (also known as the CNN of the Arab world) which is the English version of the Arabic- language news network. I found its coverage very rationale and not just on the basis ‘power of harming others’. But again I found that this channel does not broadcast in our nation. I was unable to find reasons for no broadcast of this channel here, or should I say the reason required no words.
Even I feel that media should cover news items which are of national importance or public welfare and must also contain case histories from all over the world which can help in mutual development of every country.
For instance the Ruchika molestation case can be dealt this way too. By showing how other nations have dealt with such situations and what their law provides in such cases. For example, in the Nithari case an international research and coverage was done by various media houses.
When I had crossed all straights and angles of going global with news I understood that there were many reasons behind the fact why our media did not work that way. Reasons like commercialization leave no space for readable news items, policy and polity of nation are other contributing factors.
Recently there have been tie ups of various India based news channels and papers with foreign media houses, for example, the tie up between UTV and Bloomberg, Hindustan Times and The Washington Post, and many more.
So do you think we need a globalized media? Drop in a comment below or mail us at info@youthkiawaaz.com, you can also tweet us at @YouthKiAwaaz.
The writer is a correspondent at Youth Ki Awaaz and also a student of Mass Communication
image: http://mobasoft.com/wordpress/tag/twitter/
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