As I start this blog, I find the Indian Media in ferment...and call it chaos, if you will. Add low-cost technologies to dozens of media wannabes--TV channels, newspapers, magazines, what-have-you--and you get loads and loads of people, faces, soundbites, stories, news.
Does all this make sense? Is there a Tower of Babel where there ought to be a well-designed symphony? Do readers/viewers care?
Internet will only make this more complex as the days go by. Media is in ferment everywhere, thanks to technology, but it is special in India, where there is a curious melange of professional values, business ambitions and sheer amateriushness co-existing. It is easy to bash the Times of India, trash the Hindu, banter about NDTV and wonder how and why Aajtak is a big hit. There are answers to all that, of course. But the real issue is whether those who are in the thick of it know them for what they are. It is common for journalists to make the same mistake as the viewers...which is to assume that the whole world thinks like you. And ought to think that way!
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