Okay, I used to think that the Times of India's obsession with Paris Hilton is ridiculous...but last week when Anna Nicole Smith (ANS) , an absolutely inconsequential starlet/former Playboy playmate died, scores of Indian media sources carried this piece of news..Tell me why does the average Indian, people like you and me, need to know about this..??
I was surprised to find a small piece on ANS's death in the Indian Express, had expected it in the Times of India but definitely not bang on top of the Indian Express website. Later, I found the same story on Indian Express's Screen, their entertainment portal which was still okay...my patience really ran out when I saw the story in nothing less than the Financial Express..
A quick Google search reveals the following other media organizations carried news bits on ANS's death and the controversy surrounding her baby's father:
DNA
The Times of India
NDTV
CNN_IBN
Nagaland Post (really!!! see, www.nagalandpost.com)
The Statesman
Hindustan Times Tabloid
Samachar.com
Indo-Asian News Service
Zee News
The Statesman, otherwise known as the snobbish Bengali mouthpiece, carried the story in its in"international section", along with other stories like:
‘Jinnah wasn’t a real hero’
Another flawed Iraq probe
Fonda, Sally take a decision
N-talks hit Chinese wall
Another flawed Iraq probe
Fonda, Sally take a decision
N-talks hit Chinese wall
Sure, they carried the story as a stub, but imagine placing the news item between stories about international wars, a possible coup in a neighboring nation, the nuclear debate etc...
It is really really HARD to get over our colonial mindsets, isn't it?
3 comments:
well said .. so would the life or death of any celebrity, in India or abrod ..
That is one of the main problems of modern media. Publishers look for the easy dollars and pursue banal stories ahead of important ones.
Good post.
No, not that hard unless you believe that it is the mindset you crave for so that you are seen to be doing what they are, in the belief that you will become one of them. They call it the herd mentality!
Moreover if you also believe that to succeed you need to do what the 'successful' do, then you revisit territories they did, and are doing.
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