Of appeals, wakatchabas, claims etc : Comical mentality
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 04 2015 -
Blame game in the columns of the newspapers.
This is more acute in the vernacular dailies but this is not say that the English dailies are spared too.
Flip through the pages of the local dailies and it is not uncommon to see numerous appeals or wakatchabas, clarifications, allegations, claims and counter claims and yes blame games.
A clear reflection that something is seriously wrong with the mentality of the people.
Why has it refused to register in the mind of the people that there are other mechanisms to deal with their issues ?
Instead of levelling charges and accusations through the media, why can’t the people go to the police or the Court ?
Yes the mass media is there to give publicity to the grievances of the public, but this should not be taken to mean that the media is here to address the strictly personal and private issues of individuals or families and even communities.
On the other hand this could also be an indication of the acute lack of trust and confidence in anything that is remotely associated with the Government.
So instead of approaching the mandated authority to speak out and have a say on matters which concern them, people are under the impression that publicising the issue will serve their interest better.
And hence the numerous strictly personal issues which are aired through the media on a daily basis. Either way the reality does not speak well of the ground reality.
Tough to say when this practise started but today this is a reality and it would be good if some academic research can be conducted to see why such a trend has caught on.
And to think that such claims, allegations, counter-claims, clarifications, wakatchabas, etc entail expenses and one can imagine the mentality of the people who do not hesitate to go to the press to state their personal stand on any matter.
Washing dirty linen in public comes to mind.
Claims and counter-claims go together in the sense that there can be two or more parties over an issue, each stating their stand, which are strictly personal and have nothing to do with the people as a whole or the State.
To the media persons such a practise can be a big headache.
The media is no doubt powerful in the sense that it can influence the mindset of the people but using it to settle personal matters can only erode the position of the media.
This is something unwanted in a democracy.
Difficult to say when people will come to their sense, but a beginning somewhere has to be made and perhaps the starting point could be for the media houses to tell the people that the media cannot be used for issues which are strictly personal more so personal issues which may come camouflaged as public issues.
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