Both the television and print media have lost most of the respect and value associated with them. In a senseless bid to attract readership/TRP, the media is going all out to find juicy scoops and even utter rubbish, as long as a celebrity is visible amidst all that rubbish, to get to the top of the pile of junk.

When I recently tuned into Aaj Tak, the top story of the evening was how Aishwarya Rai-Bacchhan was observing Karva-Chauth, what with dozens of cameramen staking out at prized vantage positions to get the all important grab of Aishwarya performing the rituals on the terrace of her mansion. Incidentally, Mukesh Ambani became the richest man in the world, albeit for a short stint, due to the bull run, but this just got a mention in the scrawling text at the bottom of the screen, while the Bacchans took centre-stage. Is this news? National news? What do I care whether Aishwarya performs some rituals or God forbid, is having a case of loose-motions? When I changed the channel to yet another of the whole bunch of news channels on offer, their reporter was gushing that their cameraman was in a better position than all other cameramen from other news agencies, so we could stay tuned to get the clearest live images from atop the Bacchan’s roof-top. Good God!

The other favorite passtime of these ‘news’ channels is to air anything crazy and perverted, in order to attract the odd eyeball. Whether it is a guy who eats light-bulbs to a woman who pretends to be possessed by evil spirits, all these people are put into national limelight by these wonderful news channels. Another deplorable quality of these ‘news-men’ is to selectively edit interviews and statements by celebrities to cash in on the confusion. Recently, Shahid Kapoor was being interviewed about his new movie ‘Jab We Met’ and was asked loaded questions whether a man who was out of love would contemplate suicide and things like that, and while telecasting, they almost completely left the mention of the movie out of the screened version. And to top matters, they started off by talking about Shahid’s breakup with Kareena. That was one of the worst cases of twisting of information by the media to get eyeballs and TRP. There is only one word to describe the state of media in our country. Sad.