A senior friend of mine, who was a senior journalist of a well-known
newspaper, often used to comment about news reporting. He would say that if a
dog bites a man, it is not a news item. However, if a man bites a dog it is
headline news. In today’s context, I find this observation by my friend nothing
but truth. An event becomes news worthy if there is an element of
unexpectedness. Higher the factor of unexpectedness, higher is the news value
of an event. Take example of a sports event. Any unexpected result is always
highly noteworthy.
It appears to me that today’s news media have simply forgotten
this rule. According to them, report of anything happening can turn into a news
report if it can be twisted or turned to produce a depressing “feel bad” factor.
In fact, this thought has become so prevalent that any news event that does not
produce a depressing “feel bad” factor is not newsworthy at all. Sometimes however,
their attempts to put everything into a negative light can misfire badly and
produce result, where a reader might start wondering about authenticity of that
news media itself.
Yesterday, there was a statement made by India’s finance
minister that compared to situation an year back, the “Non-performing Assets”
or NPA of India’s public sector banks have decreased,
definitely a piece of good news. According to my understanding, when finance
minister of a country makes a statement, it is the official word from Government. There are no doubts about it
whatsoever. It certainly is not a claim, which may prove true or otherwise. However,
our news media have called or named the statement as a claim, injecting in air
of uncertainty, which would mean that the claim might be true or is most
probably false.
What is hilarious however, is the actual description. The
news item calls this reduction in NPA, a slide in NPA. A slide always
has a negative tone. The stock markets or commodity prices may slide, Rupee may
slide against US Dollar. I have never heard of Non-Performing Assets, which are
in reality debts that banks are unable to recover, slide. It is clear that in
proving his utmost commitment to give black negative colour to each and every
news item; our news reporter has goofed here.
A particular Indian news media is often found indulging in
this kind of negative reporting. The problem is that we, the ordinary people,
who suffer these daily injections of negativism from this media, can do nothing
about it. I have a feeling that the time has come to start boycotting this newsgroup.
26th September 2018
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