Monday, September 24, 2012

What good is (conventional) media doing to me?

When I was a child my parents and teachers used to censor information flow that I used to consume. I wasn't suppose to mix with bad people, wasn't suppose to read news and books those talk about violence and evil things. I wasn't suppose to watch movies those might scare me or influence me to things like smoking, drug addiction, violence, suicide, swearing and corruption. Now that I I am grown up, nobody is filtering my consumption of information. However, I do the similar things to my children. They aren't allowed be exposed to evil things, I want them to grow up as good persons. Every parent does.

Now let's get to the point what is happening to me now. I wake up everyday and read newspaper. Newspaper scours through the world to pick the shocking news for me. They prioritize them. The most shocking mind-blowing bad news is over-blown to 32-point font size, colored in a vivid color, and carefully put on the front page. Sell fear. I am going to shock you, give you an adrenaline rush. Buy me!



The less shocking news are sized according to their shock-level. Hey! the news isn't going to shock the reader that much, let's put it on inner page.

The conventional media is not representative to the country or the world. It is only a collection of shocking news. On a daily on the other day news of wrong treatment by a doctor was boxed on the front-page. I am sure the said doctor treats right tens of patients everyday. He treated thousands in his medical career. I have seen my father's medical consultant kept awoke till 4 am by my father to see his BP get down. We dozed outside the OT. He came back from his house at 7 am again. We surprised to see him agin! Showered and shaven, clean and fresh. I was still dozing off. Nobody talks about millions of successful operations the doctors did and doing. Only bad acts get priority. Only mistakes catches news. But unfortunately looking at the newspaper everyday we think that that represents the day. Which absolutely doesn't. I only represent the evil's empire of the world. The better and million times larger empire of God isn't represented by the, shall I dare call it, The Daily Graphical Collection of Evil's World!    

You might say that newspaper and TV and all other media update us about the world with the important information to plan and process our actions. Yeah, yeah, I heard that before. My father used to tell me that I must stay updated with current-affairs. In many exams including many job interviews incumbents are asked about the current affairs.  

My father, for example, is a news-freak. He watches all the TV news. About ten news-serving channels. Two times a day. He reads two newspapers. In his heydays he used to visit one of his journalist friends' place and read myriad of dailies, and compare them, and talk about them, and contemplate where the county and the world is moving toward.

Only recently I managed to gather my guts to ask him what good it did bring to him. He is suffering from many of the degenerative diseases. He was not aware of those; the tips and ways of stay healthy, and his options of different treatments and therapies. Often the dailies publish health tips. Besides he could find them in abundance on internet and in books. Why didn't he read them? He actually carefully ignored them as those didn't look as glamorous as the front-page and back-page shocking stories. Or, those health tips actually called for actions. The shocking news didn't. What on earth I am supposed to if some princess is caught on camera nude? Or, if for example building a major bridge in Bangladesh is delayed for alleged corruption by the involved ministries. Hey! I only vote each five years. I asked my father what he did by learning all those detailed about politics and corruption and accidents and problems of the wold. Did he do any thing about them? Did he take any initiative to ease problems of people in the world as mentioned on the daily newspapers or TVs? I mean he is a good soul, an honest and good citizen. But I can't find what good The Daily Graphical Collection of World's Sufferings did to him.

Well, I would read about problems and suffering of a particular area if I am responsible for that area, or, if I am willing to take action in that area. For example everyone in the transport ministry and the decision makers in transport industry should read the problems of that industry. For others it is just a time waster. Oh! Did I just call it time waster? I am wrong. It is worse than that.

Get back to the issue of information filtering for children. We do that to keep our children focused, unspoiled, uncontaminated. So, now that we are exposed to everything, and not only that, everyday we are exposing ourselves only to bad things -- are we not being contaminated, spoiled and evil-infulenced?

In any social gathering if you talk about honesty, integrity and good days forward, people will call you child-like, naive or even fool.

The Bangladeshi people in general developed a perception that in here a very few honest people are left. Almost all people of the country are corrupted, dishonest, fraud and evil. How did we develop that perception? Media helped us in that. There was one time when we were aware of the problem of our village only. The problem of the area which matters to us most, and which we can do something about. Now problems of the whole country and the whole world is delivered in my breakfast, and rewinded before I sleep. We develop a wariness, and often apathy about those. More poisonously we develop a negative idea about the world we are living in. Negative perceptions lead to negative acts. During many of my transactions with my shopkeepers or banks or even colleagues, when I talk about good acts and righteousness, they complain nobody in Bangladesh is thinking like me. I am thinking naive. I don't believe that. The guy I talk to is still honest, but he developed the perception that the world is already corrupted. So, he is planning to get corrupted too. This is what media is doing to him!

I've read Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference recently. He showed in 1980s how the perception of anarchy and crime led to more crime and literally led to anarchy. Later just by wiping off the graffiti in the subway and arresting the window-breakers instilled the sense of lawfulness among all. Eventually the environment was tipped to lawful again!

Perception of evil environment makes you evil. Perception of righteous environment makes you right. 

The people from the top-ranked corrupt country are ranked as one of the best citizens in a developed country. Talking about Bangladeshi people in USA.

So, what good the conventional media serving to me?

I seriously doubt its goodness. I stopped watching TV news long before. I only subscribe The Daily Star, which is less negative; I try to self-censor the news items. I've unsubscribed the bloggers who are cynical and mostly talk about evil things, they call it journalism. I unsubscribed my friends on Facebook who disseminate negative news and talk negative. 

You can say that I am living in fool's paradise. I don't mind that. I would love to stay naive, unspoiled, child-like, and if you like -- fool. Only if I could!

Life is too short for worrying about things I can't do anything about.

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