Are we celebrating this week as the week of insensitive journalism or what?
![Geetanjali Nagpal - targetted by crass journalism [Image from TOI]](http://creepsterinc.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/nagpal.jpg?w=164&h=204)
Just witnessed the main story running on Star News channel. A former model Geetanjali Nagpal reduced to begging on the streets of Delhi allegedly owing to her drug habits. The news does warrant a look and does indeed need to be brought to notice of masses for social awareness and drug abuse stories but splashing as the main story is taking it too far. Further still, if you were to see the way the lady was made to look like an item on show by the channel, you couldn’t help wondering how insensitive the reporting has become. And when you hear how Star News was first on scene to contact the model, how Star News tried helping the model and how the model was *taken* in a STAR NEWS car to different places - it enrages your senses thinking “all this for creating a news story”. For media the charity obviously begins on the public address system. I don’t think they ever heard the saying that goes “Do good and forget it”.
And this comes on the heels of a recent Times of India photo clip. This was a photo of two planes from the Polish Zelazny Aerobatics team colliding mid-air, killing both the pilots in the crash. The least TOI team of smug b******s could have done is to not have any title to such a pic. Instead they chose to have a completely insensitive smart ass title - “Crash Course.”
Why can’t our journalist and editors just be a bit more sensitive of what they are reporting? Why do they leave their brains at home when they talk on their news subjects?
Great post as usual.
I agree this is insensitive reporting. They should have at least pixelated the face of the model and changed any information identifying her.
What next, the story of a model who is a street walker because he/she can’t support his/her lifestyle? Or has that story already been done before?
Husband Robert and Son Arthur are waiting for Geetanjali Nagpal
at
http://www.sheetudeep.com/blog/lifestyle/husband-robert-and-son-arthur-are-waiting-for-geetanjali-nagpal/
I completely agree with this post. This is what I call not just insensitive jornalism but also irresponsible. All this in the same of creating sensationalism. I do feel though the reader/viewer is also to blame partially for the way the media handles such news. This doesn;t include the “crash course” title to the picture. For that I can only imagine some dimwit sitting with the pictures and coming up with the title and feeling like a genius.
Welcome to capitalism. This is how news reporting happens when the primary goal is TRP ratings. The news channels are running a business and they would need returns on their investments. If brain-dead reporting and the production of sensational, empty, and meaningless tripe does the job, so be it. I might not like it and you might not like it too, but there obviously is a large clientèle for it, or it would not be there.
I am not at all against capitalism and privatization, but we have to realize that they have their sordid side-effects too. Let us all grit our teeth and take it as it comes.
RP - I agree with you that the News Channel should have at least pixelated the area around her face. But I think they were rather more interested in creating the whole story than care about the individual who would be affected by it.
DC Merlin - thanks for pointing me to the Robert and Son article.
Anju - Indeed it was irresponsible as well. I agree with you when you say that reader/viewer is partially to blame but still how a story is run on a channel is completely a responsibility of the channel itself. And it was handled pretty badly by Star News (that is with no moral/ethical senstivities).
Bald Monkey - I am not at all against capitalism, I am not against sensationalisation of even ordinary things as well. It only enrages me when I see people being exploited. The story was an eye opener but the way it was presented was demeaning. However, I see some truth on your capitalism-TRP-tripe nexus.
you never know the model would have agreed to be covered like that on the news….
Hi
This is sad.Geetanjali’s story -the way it was casted in media was really sad.
Thaks….it is already proved that she is under lot of stress plus in unstable mental condition and going through psychological treatment,than how would she have agreed to be covered like this to make news.
No offense to you Deepmala or Geetanjali….it is quite possible in that state of mental disorder she would have agreed….i have dealt with mentally challenged people where they have the delusions of self grandeur and want to be the center of attraction….but anyways it is really really sad as i feel the channel seeing her in this state could have coerced/exploited her condition to do all that
Thaks i took you wrongly i suppose.
When i was discussing the same with one of my colleagues,she was more under the illusion that geetanjali had planned most of the episode just to gain media attention and make news.i thought you are trying to say the same.
So i tried to convince you.
It’s quite sad what happened. But we all spent these two minutes reading this blog and posting our comments because someone brought it out. Why did that someone bring it out? To make money. Is there anything good to happen from it? I see it as a perfect win-win situation. Gitanjali gets a chance, a much needed chance which many in her situation dont get. Just because she was associated with the glamour industry she gets this chance, there maybe hundred of interior designers, doctors etc, who are all not associated with the glamour world and who are in the same predicament and cant think of a way out.
The media gets its story for the day. We are a bit intriguied, our emotions stirred, and the writer of this blog gets something to write about. In what way is it a win-lose situation?
Sometimes, things are sensationlized beyond justification, agreed. But this is a democracy, eveyrone has his say, not his way.
To sum up, sometimes we as a society try to show ourselves as extra sensitive creatures, which we may not be and try to judge another’s action. I dont want to blame star or the guys who want to make a total commercial spot out of it, they’re doing their job. The only people we should judge here is ourselves, had we had such an opportunity to make money and to get a bit of the limelight, would we let it go or jump and pounce on it? If the answer is ‘let it go’, i dont think you should be judged too. Thats your choice, others may not agree.
Nivedita - thanks for your comments and your view is indeed thought provoking.
As I have already responded to one of the comment earlier, I do not have anything against sensationalisation of news, its something I have grown to expect of our news channel. Does it make the news itself any more intriguing? That is open to personal choices. Personally, I like my news delivered objectively without too much pomp and show.
I am not trying to project having an extra-sensitive front, nor am I implying that Star News should have let the story go. My beef is about how the story was handled.
And as you rightly pointed out its a democracy not everyone has his way, but good thing is I have my say.
Point understood and completely identified with.
“Icchadhari Nagin ka inteqaam” lol.
Aaj Tak is one of the worst news channels, but it is mighty popular. The line differentiating Star News and Star Gold is quickly disappearing as well.
Well said. I think CNBC is good, India TV (borderline- not out and out bad). I hate Zee News, full of fiction, NDTV is the high-society ‘cool’ fiction, sahara too plain. The one that has Rajdeep Sardesai is okay, but he too tries to act like he is asking really really radical questions and hitting it where it hurts most, kinda artificially sensationalizing. i find such attempts very obvious, pathetic, and desperately playing to the audience. Sometimes those ‘hard hitting questions’ dont even make sense. Arnab Goswami is also a member of his league. Barkha Dutt… after the lie i saw for myself and the conviction with which she said it, gosh i think the women is an actress not a journalist.
I remember Arnab Goswami interviewing the Finance Minister and he said, so very aptly, something like, “Arnab, the last time i was interviewed by your colleague with some very made out hard hitting issues, the conversation took a very bad turn towards the end and i had to get up and walk out. I am sure you are aware of it, and i wish it doesnt go this way this time. so, let’s talk about the real issues and not generate issues” Not a very big fan of the FM, but loved the way he said it.
I must say Rajat Sharma does not make such dramatic and theatrical presentations. You know, it’s only been a few years for free satellite television and news channels in India. Maybe we’ve not matured yet, possible. Maybe with time and blogs like yours, these guys will find the equilibrium.
Cheers!!!
Nivedita-
If I could sum up my point in one line it would be “A worthy news is always news worthy”. You do not need to support it with dramatisation.
I do not imply that News Channels are up to no good. They are very important part of our freedom of expression. And they have taken up cases like Jessica Lall and Priyadarshani Matoo for which I admire them.
But frankly, I find it easier to follow the news in papers, for its easily more desensitised and not in your face. To read the Khap Panchayat doings in a newspaper does not render it less intriguing than seeing a distressed mother’s face on news channels. In fact more often than not, the news channel seem to be harassing their subjects just to make things look bleaker so it may become news worthy.
I am not too much into following news casters much either. Though I do like Barkha Dutt’s handling of Big Debates and presentation. Sardesai is also fine because for me he does ask some incisive questions. Karan Thapar’s background research is very enlightening. However, my all time favourite anchor has always been Pranoy Roy. His no-nonsense and objective presentation of news has always interested me. In Hindi I only seem to remember - “Choti waale Baba” Srivardhan Trivedi of Sansani fame (though I do not like him one bit).
There are some great news presenters but I agree that some News Channels need to become more mature content-wise. However, we again return to the point that Anju made that probably its the Readers/Viewers that need to age too. And also to what you and baldmonkey said “Money-TRP-tripe nexus”.
I completely empathize with Geetanjali’s story. I stay away from news channels as far as possible… I consider it mere meat for a show… and the show must go on… mustn’t it? Perhaps Geetanjali has been a scapegoat of her family.. where she was not accepted and was forced to change… and if not contorted and conformed according to what a large stupid blob mass of conciousness or rather unconciousness of her family or society… she is exiled. We want everyone who is different to change in such a manner that they don’t fit in and become mere contortions of themselves… Conscience and cowardice are the same thing… Conscience is just the tradename of the firm. What people don’t understand is that they want a change so bad in someone else… they do not realize Acceptance itself is the beginning of the greatest Change. It is sad we make clowns of people who are in so much agony and prepare a backdrop of lies and set the most wonderful show. News should be merely reported… not distorted.
If they want to create such sensationalism and call it news… I think they do have the freedom to make their own shows on other channels and not call it “news”… So they have their little “freedom of expression”… I cannot believe news channels can actually get away with such bullshit…
Simply …a slap on humanity!!!
She use to sleep with men to fullfil her needs…
not even a single person …came forward to help her ……on that time….not even her friends…her roommates..
…now every body is trying to show their respect and grief towards her!!!……
i am shoked when i came to know about her..i even cried……
Hi,
Indeed a good post on a topic that I was lingering in my mind this morning. I think the media has crossed the line of being insensitive and has marched into the world of shamelessness. Whether, its the hype with the Shilpa Shetty-Richard Gere encounter being telecasted again and again repeteadly or if its sounding the bugle that the government is gonna collapse everytime there is a UPA-Left meeting.
Its deplorable that the so called “voice of the people” have been playing pretty cacophonous tunes and its high time the media embraces a sense of responsibility and also a little bit of discipline will be of help.
Damodar Prabhu
http://www.damodarprabhu.blogspot.com
well mate you know the answer to your “why” question~~~my question is why do people ask stupid question when they already know thw answers~~~
Thanks for sharing