Has television gone to the dogs?

Media is creating a ‘subversive subculture’ in all of us, and the danger is, we don’t realize it.

As I have written before, I am a firm believer that media creates a subversive subculture in us. We behave out of our culture. Right and wrong largely don’t matter in culture-driven behaviour.

And, that’s the danger.

Cannibals eat human flesh because it is in their culture. Witchdoctors make human sacrifice because it is in their culture to do so.

Violence and bloodshed have become part of our life. Murder doesn’t send anymore chill down our spine. Sexual abuse is part of our lifestyle.

And, the question is, can media shy away from the responsibility of inculcating and nurturing such a subversive culture which in the long run will influence individual behaviour? ‘

Unfortunately, no. All the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten the little hands of media from the stench of blood!

I was shocked to see the other day a new but popular news channel in Malayalam running a scroll ad during its Prime Time broadcast of someone who practises sorcery and black magic. The ad promoted ‘destruction of enemy’ (shathru samharam). The same channel didn’t have any qualms about running regular ads on an Ayurvedic aphrodisiac which has been under some legal cloud.

So, the bottom line is business, and for money we are ready to let go ethics and values. Yes, media too is business, and media houses have to make money but it should not be at the cost of ethics and values or in the form of paid news.

But promoting a brand for sorcery and black magic to see our ‘enemies destroyed’, we are inadvertently promoting vengeance and violence.

The danger is, we don’t even realise that by watching these ads regularly or reading or watching crime stories reported with a melodramatic stretch of imagination day in day out, a subculture is being formed in our conscience, which subscribes to vengeance and violence, and our actions will be based out of these ‘silent convictions’ of the subculture in us.

Our national media thrives on negativism, and one is not far away from truth that our opinions are largely influenced by the barrage and bombardment of verbal volleys by the opinionated editors who grill politicians across the table as if they were the morality gatekeepers of our nation.

I was happy to read a tweet from Rajdeep Sardesai a few Sundays ago in which he promoted the CNN-IBN’s India Positive programme and said ‘enough of the negativism’. Wow, that made my day. I tweeted him congratulating for at least voicing such a thought. Even though his channel is not cleansed of all negative reporting, at least a feeble thought against negativism is heartening.

In my recent interview with Dr Shashi Tharoor, he has singled out the television channels’ mad chase of TRP ratings as the cause for the decline of responsible journalism in the country. He said that the channels are not ‘breaking something but someone’.

During my very brief stint with a television channel, I have heard the regrets of many reporters that they have become just ‘byte gatherers’. I have had reporters confessing to me that they don’t remember the last time they did a good journalistic story.

Talking about television media, if I say it has gone to the dogs, you can’t crucify me. I am not joking, and it is not a print journalist’s dig at the visual media either. DogTV is a channel dedicated for the dogs in America! Going by reports, the channel is getting popular because millions of dogs in America are home alone during the day when their masters are out at work.

After a successful rollout in California earlier this year, the channel is now available online. The promoters are looking at a nationwide distribution.

I’m sure the cats won’t take it easy. And, the serial producers in India can think on their toes and come up with some tearjerkers for the canine folks! 

We can’t say that communication technology is only for us. Dogs do have their day, don’t they? 

(This article was published in Art&Deal Magazine, New Delhi)