When Swami Chakrapani Maharaj, president of Hindu Mahasabha, said that Consuming cow urine and cow dung will stop the effect of infectious Coronavirus, few of the most prestigious news agency IANS, ANI picks the story and many mainstream media houses run by Corporate houses carried the news. In February 2017, Hindustan Times, one of the largest circulated newspaper in India published a story of one Bihar State Assembly MLA urinating in public and that too at the premises of a District Magistrate office. Interestingly that was the time when the government of India under the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been boosting the “Swaach Bharat Mission”. When Bollywood star Deepika Padukone
Joined students at JNU who at that time was protesting against the CAA and NRC, she was the center of attraction of all media. Discussion after discussion continues for weeks and even today to her presence even as she didn’t speak a word. Photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi praying blessing from her mother Heeraben Modi, not only was the headline of many media houses in the country but went viral on social media sites on the internet.
Coming back here in the state of Manipur, almost all newspaper hits headline when CAF and PD Minister Karam Shyam cycled to attend office. MLA Nashir when walking till state Assembly from his quarter at a time when Manipur was facing fuel scarcity after the prolonged economic blockade was published as a headline at one of the leading newspapers published here. When the then works Minister K. Ranjit Singh lifted a hammer and check the quality of government construction, newspapers of Manipur carried the news as a headline.
The other day when three of us were on our way to Bishnupur, my friend , who is also the Resident Editor of this newspaper saw a helpless cat lying in a confused state in the middle of the Tiddim road near Malom. He immediately stopped his car and picked up the cat which happened to be pregnant and handed over to some people living in a makeshift camp on the roadside. Nobody notices and it was not in the news. Many rickshaw pullers or predestine or Auto drivers or say any common people on emergency were seen urinating particularly at the wall of the Electricity department. Some concerned citizens sometimes stopped them and advise them to urinate at the appropriate place. No media, or persons having a smartphone with a camera took notice of that because the person trying to clean at his own risk was a common man. If suppose the person advising them happened to be a bureaucrat, the scene may certainly go viral in social media prompting the media houses to pick up the story.
With the advancement of Information technology, competition among media houses is at its height. There are rumours among the intellectual circle that media people these days makes the story to increase TRP rating to make sure that they make more revenue.
The classical theory of news – “When a dog bites a person it is no news but when a man bites a dog it is news” still is practical even though some media critics have different opinions.
Prime Minister Narendra, Swami Chakrapani Maharaj, president of Hindu Mahasabha, Deepika Padukone, MLAs , MPs , Bureaucrats etc. are all public figures and they are celebrity people. Good or bad anything they did or spoke is news for media persons.
People across the country know many urinated and spoil the environment, but no such are being picked up by media houses as a story. But when an MLA from Bihar urinated at the office premises of a District administration, it was a piece of hot news. Many people are riding a bicycle, but when Minister K Shyam rode it is a News for media people, similarly when MLA Nashir walked to attend Assembly session it was also a piece of news.
Sometimes it is shocking to learn some people criticizing media reports of these high people saying that media has no right to infringe their private life.
The answer fro Imphal Times to them is that public figures and those top officials should be very careful in their private life too. If the kind of action he or she is indulging in is illegal even though he or she presumed it as personal life, we in the media have every reason to publish it.
