PRAGOTI

 I was mulling over the Shashi Tharoor-SM Krishna five-star-hotel (non)affair and was keen on writing on this as a blog piece. But a friend, Roshan Kishore channelled those thoughts much earlier and wrote on it and sent it to Pragoti. Hosting this as a guest post. 

"The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) today, while saying 'no' to terrorism and 'yes' to caution on media reportage of terrorism has called upon the government to desist from clamping down on the media be it visual or print and instead put in order a Media Council with teeth to act without pressure from the government or other vested interests" Reports INN

The coverage of the terror attacks showed that when the media becomes a purely business enterprise, news becomes a commodity, serving the interests of the few. It ceases to be the guardian of democracy or the protector of public interest.

NISSIM MANNATHUKKAREN's incisive article on corporate media.The article rightly identifies the role of corporate media in whipping up emotions after the Mumbai terror strike,by airing non-stop outbursts and insensible chants like “enough is enough”.The article also asserts the fact that the same media didn't come up with a similar emotional outcry for the 1.5 lakh farmers who committed suicide in a period of mere eight years and for the travail of many crores of ordinary Indians who still live like worms.

There are occasions in history when collective trauma brings a nation intimately in contact with its deepest anxieties. Mumbai 26/11, to use the media shorthand for the horror that began one night in November and carried on for close to three days, was one such. The terrorist attacks that began November 26 and transformed swiftly into a 60-hour long siege of three landmark buildings in India’s commercial metropolis, have deeply transformed the national polity. The true consequences will take a while manifesting themselves.