In India, there are innumerable things that happen daily, many good and many bad. But what does the media cover? Only the things that spread hatred. In the past few months, I have only come across negative news in the media.
Let’s see the incidents. First, there was the Kathua rape incident where the media spread so much negativity that it almost sparked communal violence. The incident was politicised to no end.
After a few days, we heard about the rape of a Hindu girl. Every day after that, there were stories about rape every week. In none of the cases did the media spread awareness or help in finding the culprits. They have only contributed negativity in the name of religion and religious sentiments.
Now let’s come to recent incidents where the media could have done something good but chose not to.
Just a few days ago, the famous RJ Naved from Radio Mirchi Delhi called up a family as part of his ‘Mirchi Murga’ prank. The family’s pet dog had been missing for a few days and they had put up posters around the city to find him. RJ Naved called the family, made it seem like he had found the dog and then ultimately told them that he hadn’t.
As a responsible media person, how dare Radio Mirchi and RJ Naved air such an insensitive call? They should have helped the family in finding the dog instead of making fun of their situation. After this incident, animal lovers from all over India slammed Naved on his Facebook page and within just a day, his Facebook rating dropped from 5 to 1.9.
On air, RJ Naved behaves like he cares about social causes but he doesn’t really. Otherwise, he would not have done this to the family. Later on, the audio of the prank was taken down from YouTube.
If media does its job well, it can help save so many lives. Let’s hope for the media to act responsibly in the future.