The NewSense

January 1, 2010

Bidar: A church was attacked in Humnabad, Bidar district in the month of November 2009.The Assailants had damaged Furniture, electrical fittings in the main prayer hall and the cross on the dome of the church.
Christians, Secular Brigade, Congress and Global Missionaries immediately concluded that – Hindu Fascists are behind the attack! As it happened in a BJP ruled state in 2008 September and as usual it invited the attention of Mainstream media. The Opposition parties such as the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) had also joined the Christians and its media in demanding action against those responsible for the attack. All hell broke down once again and Karnataka made headlines in the national and international media. Every   English speaking media most of which are owned by Global Christians started doing the special stories on “attacks on Christians in Karnataka” specifically mentioning that under BJP government which is in the power.  Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were about to express their concern towards the safety of Christians in Karnataka (George Bush had expressed his concern to   Manmohan Singh in 2008   for such attacks) and Indian external affairs minister S.M.Krishna was   drafting the assurance speech to the western world that Christians will be safe guarded in India and his deputy Tharoor was planning to tweet this issue in twitter.

Exactly after one month Bidar district police claimed to have solved this case of an attack on a church in Humnabad town in Bidar district with the arrest of a former pastor of the church and three hired goons who allegedly attacked the church. Superintendent of Police in a press statement said that the main accused was a pastor of the Humnabad church till June this year before his transfer to a church at Basantpur in Chincholi taluk in Gulbarga district had conspired to damage the church with the hope that the church authorities would cancel his transfer and keep him in Humnabad. The investigation revealed that the accused had taken the help of three people all belonging to Humnabad town, to damage the church with a promise of paying them Rs. 10,000. The main accused had already paid Rs. 1,000 as advance to the trio for carrying out the attack. The attack, which had embarrassed the district administration and the police, had caused quite a stir among the Christians who wanted the Government to take immediate action against those responsible for the attack.

Now the big question is how many media players carried this news? NONE, except few local papers. If a church is attacked by some so called Hindu activists against the conversion it becomes national or international news and the whole Christians world expresses its concern including Indian Christian congress. And media gladly takes this news to the every corner of the world. Why media does not report the conversion cases which are taking place across India? Is media already converted? When a pastor of the church himself arranges the attack on his church and blames it on the Hindu organization, is it not news worthy? Why only attack on church is news and it is not news if the attacker is insider? These media centers literally close their eyes for the truth. They are not after the truth but after the sensational news. Attack on church is sensational news. But conversion by church is not. Such is our media. Who knows how many church attacks in the last year were faked similar to the Bidar case? It must be some foul play by Christians themselves or by the opposition party just to accuse ruling party. The funniest thing is media only looks at the attack on minorities, what about the attack on majorities? How long media hides truth and views every issue on a political and democratic angle? Why media seeks only sensational news and disturbs the society? Media is only after its TRP and readership. It does not give any shit about the quality of the news it is conveying to the general public. And more over every media either print or visual has its own management policy and hence majority of these agencies have set of guidelines to follow as per management instruction. And unfortunately journalism ethics are secondary as the management guideline becomes primary. And every media management is affiliated to one or the other political parties and hence it only portrays what it wants. It tries to please its stake holders and after globalization many of Indian media centers have foreign stake. Media is being driven by the people who have invested in it. And they look at it as centre of profit & loss, not as ethics and truth. The noted journalist M.J.Akbar once said that “seven deadly sins” routinely committed by the media has eroded its credibility. And those seven sins according to him are 1. Media owners and journalists, who become willing players in the game of business and politics 2. Bias, which exists in various guises 3. Pomposity which led journalists to think that they were more important than the reader 4. Creating of boredom among the readers in the name of seriousness. 5. Triumph of trivia 6. “News for sale”. The process of compromising sacredness of news space and 7. Ignorance, which is strongly common among the new generation of journalists.

Shall we still have to believe every news that we come across? It is for the people of India to decide.