Newspaper Now

Every morning I open the news paper hoping that I might find some article worth reading. Now days, it is pretty difficult to spot a news article on the daily news paper, which has some news value. It is mostly filled with details of rape case statistics in a particular city/region/country, new rape cases, celebrity scandals, murders, and the like. I know that these are no silly matters, but are these the only things that are worth reporting in a news paper? I mean, we know such things are happening all around us, but reporting them over and over again makes the reader feel that there is nothing else happening in the world.

Come to think of it, be it regional news, national news, international news, or the sports page; you get to see at least two articles regarding some scandal where some well known people are associated with some girl/guy. That can be their girl/boy friend, extra marital relationship, or their own spouse. So, what is the difference between a main stream news paper report and a paparazzi report? Where sports page is ideally meant to report news related to sports/games events, we get to read news regarding sports persons’ life events. I mean, what is the whole point of spoiling the name of a very good sports person when he still is a good player? Be it Tiger Woods or Anna Kurnikova, it is their game that we like to read about and not what they do when not on field.

We hardly get to read details of new developments in science and technology. If there is any development in this field, it will be reported somewhere deep inside the pages, with a small heading and just to the point details, so that people hardly notice the piece. On the contrary the front pages will be presented with news like “A rare photo of John F Kennedy with Marilyn Monroe Released” or “The list of women Tiger Woods is associated with”.  What value does such data add to a person’s knowledge of the world? These are nothing but trash.

This is what we get to read in almost all newspapers that are published in India. The worth of news reporting is being deteriorated everyday and the reason the publishers give is that, that is what the public asks for. No, that is not what the public asks for, the media has made public interested in such matters by publishing these over and over again. The reporters have lost their sense of duty towards the public as to report facts that are significant for the general well being.