Monday, August 30, 2010

Newspapers, cinema and the Houses of God: the entertainment industry moves on.....

Newspapers, cinema and the Houses of God: the entertainment industry moves on.....

by Harcharan Bains on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 1:12pm
People's choice of one newspaper over another depends largely on which lies entertain them more. I have always been grateful to the media because, after all , it is the only platform where a murder and a rape are described with such relish before the whole story is denied. It is also the only place where apparent rage is the journalist's fake orgasm designed to keep you involved with the meaninglessness of his enthusiasm.Fortunately, America is no match to our local genius in this.

Donkey's years pf boredom as Media Advisor to Chief Minister have been more than compensated by the thrill I continue to get in reading a headline which is only slightly less misleading than what appears below it.I know it is blasphemous but newspapers these days pose a serious challenge to the Houses of God in spreading entertaining falsehoods. There is only one power that achieves more than both of them put together: and that is the TV. TV succeeds where even the newspaper fail: in "un-educating" the illiterate. TV alone gives us the thrills of believing in absolute rubbish without even insisting on our educational qualifications or our ability to read or write. Newspapers and magazines have been forced to upgrade their skills to give a visual impetus to their art of "story" of story telling. To the TV goes the credit of letting an editor or a mere reporter experience the joy of watching how sure he looks without having to be credible and convincing. Cinema has lost out to journalism because the art of selling a nightmare these days has become more rewarding than the old art of selling a dream.

As for credibility, newspapers and news channels have only as much to do with news as he Houses of God have to do with God. Myth-making is exciting while Truth can be boring.


Hazel: The little feeling that flutter

The little feeling that flutters in my heart every time I think of someone with a noble soul gives me strength to smile at all the negative forces of the world. The day I find despair or intolerance or bitterness casting their shadows on the soft glow of love in my heart, I will re-visit the childhood I spent in the warmth of the lap of a mother who taught me to love the "enemy" with as much sincerity as a friend.