The media suck

By now, you must have got used to seeing the news flash "YSR dead in chopper crash" all over the web. Okay, it is a sad day in Andhra Pradesh with lots of mourners. I accept the fact that he was a good leader.

But, the media are at it yet again... Now, here are the facts that we need to know...

1. YSR was in a chopper on his way to some place..
2. Contact with the chopper was lost.
3. It is almost 11 hours since they lost contact and they still cant find where the chopper is.

Isn't this news enough for any layman? And won't you understand plain and clear if you were told about this once? But the media doesn't understand that we understand !!!

I knew that he was dead by this time and was waiting for some sort of confirmation. It is not that I am a sadist waiting for the CM to die...it was just too obvious..He couldn't have been hiding in some God-forsaken jungle without any sort of contact from the helicopter.

It is almost 7 o clock when I reach home. I knew about this news and visited ibnlive.com for some updates....nothing concrete so far...as they say in Tamil "Aracha maavaye araichu kittu irukkan". I start relaxing by playing some games on the computer...

My roomies arrive one by one...the first one is shell-shocked..someone had told him about the news (stale by now) and he rushed to switch on the TV...and there started the Mega-serial.
One by one they started changing news channels, from Gemini News to Eenadu TV to News 9 to TV9. They were not satisfied with what was being said in one channel and kept changing channels to see the Flash Updates being given.....

I got bored and asked them to switch to Ten Sports where the match b/w Sri Lanka and NZ was on....even before I could see a complete over, context switching had happened....

Here is what I saw on the news channel...
One channel had hired an air-expert (some goofball with flying experience) and they were essentially beating around the bush with him to kill time in the name of giving valuable news.

The government had said Sukhoi's were being deployed to aid rescue ops...
Another channel went one step further and made an animated clip of a helicopter going from left to right and a Sukhoi going from right to left. This clip was being shown while the anchor and the reporter were talking to each other...

That was yesterday evening.....

Today morning at 7 o clock, my friends are up early and watching the same news channels...and one of them, is apparently a bit heartbroken after seeing the news for so long...

The government should come out with a strong policy that enforces all broadcasters to refrain from showing the same news day in and day out. Remember, when current TN CM was arrested...SUN TV had managed to record the arrest in an amateur videocam and they played it all over their news channels for no less than 2 days, prompting the public to file a case in court for repeatedly telecasting the news and causing mental anxiety.

Can't the media understand? By wasting their airtime showing the same news over and over again doesn't make any difference. The government has already taken a strict stance on obscenity on television...if some sort of regulation is brought about for live events, the public can breathe a sigh of relief...