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In Memoriam...

To be fair, its a hard time for mass media these days; especially for broadcasted media. The print media, as of now, caters to a class of people, who have the patience and intent to scroll through, roughly ten pages of small letters (thanks to the need for advertisement and page 3 models). But thankfully its market is not dead yet. There are people who value opinions and literature of these old pioneers of information. The cable/satellite TV does not so. It faces a herculean task of getting the smartphone-addicted adolescents and office weary adults to the tv screen, and hold them together with a story both fascinating and useful.

And this is where the fall begins, in the battle for fascinating and useful; useful is generally the suitable bride, but the difficult one to chase. And when the facebook and google clicks are reducing the viewers of the TV media with every new click, Fascinating is the easy optionṣ. The script for the death of TV news was written the day fancy stories about saas-bahu-betiyaan and spooky conspiracy became TRP magnets. Reporting the truth or toiling for it, became restricted to the journalism curriculum. And debates were probably the last surviving organ of the rotting body.

This was a golden opportunity for the government since there was no watchdog's vigil at the country's governance. But instead of letting the media fall apart, and let the public know of its demise. A plastic model was prepared. The last specs of genuineness, debates were transformed into the TRP earning saas-bahu drama. But this business is not an easy one for any media house, because the actors for this drama need to be from the legislature. Ironically handing the leash of a dog in the hands of the perpetrator. Media died a lonely death, yet the viewers had no funeral to cry on.

In the end, it would be bashing if I did not mention the ones who are still on with their single-handed fight. As Rabish Kumar quotes "Some people fight not to win the war, just to let know someone is still fighting". But to be honest, Sir Kumar also stands guilty of not speaking a word in favour of the current government, making his enemy in the masses. Hee must realise that the son-in-law treatment that he is excepting is not even given to R. Badra these days. Maybe because all others have shifted to the right, he has to sit on the extreme left so that the balance does not fall.

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