Sensationalism. Something the media seems to pine for. Today's news is no longer about accurate, honest reporting about the facts. Its more than that. Only the facts that would cause people to think, or protest, or just listen in awe are the ones being broadcast by the media. If its not sensational its not newsworthy. If something changed and the story lost its sensational attributes, silently drop it. Maybe nobody will notice. In most cases nobody does.
The world is in a crisis today. There is a systemic failure, and its mainly been caused by greed and laziness. Greed in New York, where bankers saw a quick way to make money, and pass the buck on to someone else who could repackage the bad, into something good and keep up the chain. Laziness in Detroit where the auto manufacturers refused to innovate, and improve their cars because they had the unions to hold them up. Cue the failure of NY, and the money disappears, this causes less spending, which then chokes the entire system. People start losing jobs, and the cycle continues. Someone needs to break the cycle, but nobody is brave enough, or has the resources to do so. The government may be trying, but there's only so much it can do. If you let capitalism rule the roost, add expect the fit to survive, you'll end up in a monopolistic world with the few guys smart enough to have planned for this surviving. One can argue, good for them, they had back ups and they knew how to make it through the worst of it. I agree with them, but its hard to voice such an opinion with the media adding its own spin, bias and lack of information to it all.
Recently, a comedy host, one of my best sources for news these days, exposed the way a reputed news channel squandered away every opportunity it had to be a good reporter, and one which would have been respected and honored all over the world. Its all about the feel good factor, one would say. If you really want to spread the feel good factor, don't call it news, call it a soap opera, or a drama. Going by the ignorance is bliss philosophy doesn't really help, and now there are a whole lot of people with really messed up investments, and a lot of lost money, just because they followed the trusted sources that the anchors had. Have a look at the story:
Another favorite topic of the media, is the visa situation. A certain class of employees are hired from overseas under a temporary worker program. In most cases, such people are talented and highly educated. The argument being put forth by most people here is that such people take away the now scarce jobs from the locals. Its reached a point that some senators have issued letters to companies asking them to eliminate the foreigners before the locals. This might make sense, if you decide to ignore the macroeconomic scenarios. These foreigners are mainly Indians and Chinese. These guys [1] will work no end to make sure work gets done. They will make sure they pay off all their loans. They will save. They will spend as needed. They will make sure that the credit crunch doesn't hit credit cards. We'll let it slide that this was ignored.
This "request" by the senators got picked up by the Indian media, and immediately caused an outpouring of complaints by companies that work as consultants to send people to work the same jobs at less than half the cost. The ones that really exploit this program. They complained the loudest, and their voices were heard. The government also issued a statement that this was unjust and discriminatory. When, finally, one of the companies here, to whom this letter was written, refused to comply with the senators request, the story mysteriously disappeared from the news. Not one blog/news channel/website in India reported it, and left people thinking that there was an undue bias out there.
Why is it that we have such a powerful organ in the media, that works so unchecked, and wantonly creates stories out of nothing, with no concern for correcting false impressions that their stories create? Why can the media just go about and do this? Are we that gullible? Are we so inundated with the boredom of life that we need to have something sensational happen for us to pay attention? Where are the days of news being reported because its news, not because its a story? These are some of the many points that I ponder about when I accidentally reach a news channel these days.
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Bank of America took back offers given to MBA students who needed H1B - was in the news papers sometime on Mon/Tue - hmm.. the letters not completely forgotten by the media or the companies :) (Financial Times reported this)
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