The Downside of using twitter as a tool to abuse Powerful women and women of respect is not new to us day in and day out we witness female public figure being trolled at every tweet or post they do be it sagarika ghose or barkha dutt amongst others they are mind you, are ‘trolled’ not only trolled they are ridiculed not because they put interesting facts they are trolled because they are anti-establishment now the basic principle on which journalism works is not supporting the government its be anti government and let it know people’s reaction towards their policies.
People probably do not know how journalism works thats why they target journalists with veiled threats and abuses. ‘Perhaps this phase will also pass’ remarks Dr. Prannoy Roy of NDTV who introduced the nation to psephology an art of predicting in whose favour votes are going and then came ‘exit polls’ . Without going much into nitty-gritty of this i sometimes think whether being critical of the person who was a chief minister of a certain state during a sad event be a catalyst for this or does lack of education in field of journalism people day in and day out without having real knowledge of issue overreact unnecessarily? this is sometimes exemplified by yellow journalism practised by some in the press, this is unjustified as the sole profit motive by grabbing eyeballs and increasing viewership should not be the only duty of the media industry. perhaps this was the reason why press council was formed to check whether ethics on which media was allowed .
Coming to a more serious issue that is the threats issued to journalists especially women be tolerated in the name of freedom of expression . Journalists may sometimes get embroiled in controversies because of their journalistic contacts. By journalistic contact i mean ‘sources’ through whom they collect information this can be substantiated with ‘radia tapes’ which involved a top journalist in contact with a top lobbyist in a government to collect information about a possible cabinet rejig it may be a bit of over reach but definitely not a crime.
A recent study said ‘trolls’ are just like loony fringe and a sadistic group who enjoys when something bad happens with a famous personality and enjoy their 5 odd minutes of pitiful fame while I am no one to defend some of misreporting or misrepresentation of facts practised by journalists in the name of news no one should ever support threatening or abuse of any kind in whatever the context errors are always corrected immediately don’t newspapers like the ‘THE TIMES OF INDIA’ OR ‘THE HINDU’ issue clarifications and corrections in their esteemed daily ? Don’t journalists issue a clarification in their blog citing clerical or source issue? why do we have to overreact on anything and everything which happens to someone all the time don’t we have our own life should we not mind our own business and not interfere in anyone’s life? those are some questions i put to you . Any logically thinking person would agree that its foolish and illiterate to act like a street urchin in a society such as ours which is so vibrant and regarded as one of a kind by the whole world do we want a society which is intolerant to a slightest error of judgement during reportage we blame a public figure incessantly for even a slight error?
this is clearly and certainly not our occupation and its tough . Priya Ramani once said ‘trolls fear powerful women who speak their mind out scare them ‘ and they cant see a woman being on the top .
***************************************************THE END**********************************************************
Citations:
- why ppl hate barkha dutt http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/C3zY1Y1ycBJYDNRmNPCmHK/Why-everybody-loves-to-hate-Barkha-Dutt.html
- Dr. Prannoy Roy on tabloidisation of news:http://www.ndtv.com/opinion/prannoy-roy-on-the-tabloidization-of-indian-news-760247
Truth ! 