Monday, October 13, 2008

Media: right or WRONG

Last week a leading news channel was seen patting its back. It carried out an operation in Delhi. A female reporter walked on the road alone during the night to catch the person/persons who tried to take advantage of her.
One must say that this was a clear master stoke. However there seems to be a flaw. It served no positive purpose other than to add to the TRP of the news channel. On the hindsight it did some harm.
Firstly, let me go into as to why nothing positive came out of it. “Are the women safe at night?” is one such question as, “Is cigarette smoking not injurious to health”. Come’ on all of us know that answer to both the questions is a stern NO. What the channel tried to do by proving a well known fact, is far from my understanding. In fact a few days ago, even the Delhi CM agreed that roads are not safe for the females at night. Had the issue been “how this should be resolved”, channel should have been patted. It would have helped creating a better environment. But I guess, it’s easier to be a part of the problem than to be of the solution.
Secondly, why it did some harm? Consider the scenario that the car of a lady broke down at night. Now would anyone stop to help her? I think not. He would be more worried that if the lady turns out to be a reporter in disguise, he would be shown on television as a beast trying to take advantage of a stranded girl. This number would be much higher than the number of real criminals who would turn away due to the fear of being exposed. So in effect it would do more harm than good.

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