CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA

CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA A S part of our mission for constructive work, we seek to communicate our message to every section of the community. Therefore, we thought it would be a good idea that our message gets communicated to our friends of the press as well. For the press is, in our day and age, like the public’s eye with which they see; it is like the public’s mind with which they think. Although journalism is not very advanced in our country, still—in theory at least—the press is the greatest power in the modern age. In western countries, the press has become an independent force, parallel to governments. If the press in these countries turns against a president or prime minister, then its opposition cannot be ignored. The political eclipse of Richard Nixon in 1973 provides us with an example of the power of the press in western countries. However, I would like to say that the power of the press has not yet been channeled in the right direction. Man today holds this power in his grasp, but as yet it has not been effectively implemented for the improvement of humankind. For the media, a piece of good news is no news. A news item has no appeal if it has no sensational value. Modern journalism makes a thing, which in real terms is worthless, appear as if it is of the greatest worth. Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist and a celebrated author of many best-selling books. Enlightenment Now is perhaps his most famous book. In this book, the author argues on behalf of reason, science, humanism and progress. An adapted article from this book appeared in The Guardian, February 17, 2018. “News is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen. We never see a journalist saying to the camera, “I’m reporting live from a country where a war has not broken out”— or a city that has not been bombed, or a school that has not been shot up. As long as bad things have not vanished from the face of the earth, there will always be enough incidents to fill the news, especially when billions of Maulana Wahiduddin Khan addressed many press conferences in his lifetime. He also wrote a good deal about the role of media in shaping public opinion. In this article, Maulana enumerates the challenges the media faces. He also provides some guiding principles.