What about little change in daily news menu?
This is the story of two persons, both avid newspaper readers. Their crisp folded newspapers, one in Punjabi and three in English, including The Hindustan Times, are part of their breakfast menu. For the rest of the day the two of them regurgitate on what they have read; looking for similarities and dissimilarities in their respective papers, hunting for topics of common interest, arguing, agreeing, disagreeing, debating and discussing.
Most of the time, however, they laugh, lamenting over the fact that they have not found a single news item that has interested them or influenced their thinking.
The outcome, they say, after going through the papers, is ‘zero.’
A newspaper is not just part of our daily menu: it is a habit, an addiction; a deep-rooted cultural indoctrination that makes us ‘dependent’ on it. This is so, despite the invasion of electronic, social and digital media. One cannot deny that the newspaper effect permeates society and culture. The current media storm, thanks to television, i-Phones, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook et al, is in effect ‘multisensory extension’ of the human body.
Cut to the two persons. The elder is 89 with a slight wrinkled face, fading eye-sight, somewhat hearing impaired, yet receptive and alert. One fine day, she declared in a commanding voice with an air of finality: “Tell the hawker to stop delivery of my newspaper from tomorrow,” adding that she was tired of chewing the same topics, political slugfests, accusations, irresponsible and imponderable claims and counter-claims; kidnappings, gang rapes, murders, suicides, extortions, drug-related irritating and anguish-triggering reports; the climate of uncertainty: weather-wise (natural calamities) and civil societywise (man-made); mob lynching; governments’ financial profligacy; bank frauds; Supreme Court hearings on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, etc.
I was taken aback! What would she do the entire morning sitting out in the lawn, after she was through with her Nitnem (collection of hymns)? My polite inquiry, prodding, pleadings had no effect on her Tefloncoated decision. She had been a newspaper addict even before her son took up journalism as a profession, which he pursued for three decades!
I was as unconvinced about her impromptu decision as she was convinced of it. And to end the discussion, she said with a faint starchiness in her voice, “Enough. The newspaper does not inspire me anymore. It is the same stale stuff of daily news menu, which leaves a bitter taste in the mouth; and on the mind! Her diktat has since been carried out.
Her son, 69, became pensive and remorseful. Why not a ‘realty-check’ on what she had said so succinctly; at pointblank range? He randomly pulled out three copies of Hindustan Times from the stack, dusted them and scanned them like Sherlock Homes would. In all the three copies, differently dated, each a week apart, a common denominator was discernible. Connecting the dots a clear picture emerged, quite close to what the elder person had described while deciding to unsubscribe her Punjabi daily.
The content analysis revealed a continuity of news, views, events; advertisements and photographs in the three editions. She seemed right! It was same news relay: mob lynching; kidnapping, molestations, gang rapes, killings; drugrelated news; murders, extortions; political mud-slinging and what have you! Positivity was missing. Nothing to cheer or uplift spirits!
A NEWSPAPER IS A HABIT, CULTURAL INDOCTRINATION THAT MAKES US ‘DEPENDENT’ ON IT