Attended this Panel Discussion on the legitimacy of Media Trials ( if they may be so called). Though the discussion did not have much to offer, it did get the thought process ticking. With the Media's inherent capability of sniffing out issues that promise of evoking the slightest public interest, issues such as the one in mention are bound to spring up. And with a billion opinions in the foray, contradictions are bound to arise. And, they have.
To many of us, media intervention in most things appears to be the one thing we could very well do without. I count myself in that school for a couple of issues too, but definitely not for all. And then there are some issues, like the one in question, that leave me on the fence, not totally sure of which way I should lean. The next couple of lines, will therefore be, more than anything else, an attempt to clear the fog from around me.
The one thing that I find disarming about 'Media Trials' is that they 'presuppose' the guilt of one party. In this sense, then, the entire essence of a "trial" is defeated. There IS no trial, guilt declared even before innocence could be argued. So, what the media does, is no longer a trial of guilt, it simply is a reinforcement of
their perception of who the guilty might be. And that I feel, is totally unwarranted.
The fact that it in a way affects the way the judiciary reacts and responds to the case is also oft argued, and conceded. That is a truth no rational mind can evade from.
To me, if one had to ask, both these issues are glaring, but, they are indispensable because Objectivity too, very often, falls victim to Subjectivity.
I, personally, have never been totally in tandem with what the media does and consequently, ellicits. It does, and sometimes too often for comfort, transgress the limits of the job. That it is no saint is well conceded too. Just the other day, we heard it from the horse's mouth himself..the Editor of a very popular daily said they print news they can "cash upon"...that I feel, is an important revelation of the real intent with which most of these writeups are created...they know that succulent pieces of news shall very quickly be devoured. Ah! The mechanics of trade at work again..did someone say we were into philanthropy??
Media definitely moulds the way the public concieves issues, but it also, very often, is moulded by what the public at large thinks, and it offers what the public wants. There are threads of contradiction that run in my mind here though...do they show something because the people want it or do the people want it because it is being offered to them? More like you scratch my back and I shall scratch yours. Some will argue that people these days read the paper and watch the news with a pinch of salt, I seem to disagree. I feel that most of us, particularly those of us with flexible opinions, have an indiscriminate faith, though not a blind one, on such offings of information, and we are, no matter how much we might fight it, influenced by what is offered to us. There, therefore, lies the responsibilty on these bastions of information. They influence the direction in which the wind shall blow.
Media, no longer is a monolith that it used to be earlier. There is a mammoth amount of competition that it faces from within. There is also no longer the control that mafia houses once exercised over it. Every action of the Govt. is therefore, constantly under scrutiny. This, in a way, expedites the process. Their role here therefore cannot be disputed, atleast not till the point they actually interrupt and impede the process ( which also happens quite frequently!)
Almost done with what I thought I'll write, there are probably a couple of things that I've left out I'm sure ( nothing unusual in that!)...my friends often prompt me to research well before I write...now I know why!! :D
Though I'm still in the quagmire that I was before, there is a hint that the fog might have cleared a bit.
