Media Responsibility

Government of India constituted many committees to recommend reforms in its governance. Some of these committees have made brilliant suggestions. Government accepted some of these and rejected others. And today, those-in-the-know opine that reforms will come in only through pressure from civil society - NGOs, media etc.

The Right to Information Act, which is thorny to both bureaucrats and politicians, came in due to agitations from the civil society.

But then, we hardly get the impression that our media is a responsible player in evolving our governance set-up. Leave the tabloid journalism, set aside the obvious political leanings of newspapers. There needs to be a fundamental shift in the way we report, the way we transmit news to people.

Our reporting is event-driven. News items focus on "what" of the event. A bridge collapses, our newspapers focus on the "what". A bridge collapsed. Seven cars and an autorickshaw got crushed. So and so number of people died. Add to that a picture that rivets you to the gore of "what" happened. "What" did the Chief Minister say? "What" did the public say, think, feel..?

In this flood of "whats", the "why" is relegated to the Nth page with drab font and print that only few read. A report on the second page says "No coordination in work", "No Disaster Management Plan". Shouldn't this "why" be on the front page??

Isn't that the responsible way to focus attention on the cause instead of highlighting the symptoms? The headline should read "Lack of coordination kills 'n' and lack of a disaster management plan kills 'm'".

Really, should we care about the real exact event that was the immediate cause? I think we should focus on the disease instead.