Irresponsibility Again -Media, Are you listening?

'Duke Of  Hazard strikes again' screamed the headlines of the famous Britain Daily newspaper 'The Sun'. It reported that Prince Philip of England, the Queen's better half  had insulted the Patel Community in England when he remarked 'There's lot of your family in tonight' to Business Chief Atul Patel at a Buckingham Palace reception for British Indians to celebrate the state visit to Britain by The President Of India.
(Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/royals/2700630/Prince-Philip-makes-a-joke-about-the-Indian-name-Patel.html)

Good ol' Lord, what is happening to our people? Have we lost the ability to appreciate humour, by large a seemingly harmless one! The Sun further went on to add that this joke appeared to suggest that all Patels are related. Did the correspondent really think the Prince was thinking all that while harmlessly greeting someone. C'mon Sun, give the old man a break! It's very obvious he meant no vice or harm!

Media, get a grip! You exist because of the normal public. You exist because we expect you to give us sensible reporting. C'mon you have the power to almost make or break a nation, do not sensationalize trivial things like this!

• Do you really understand the significance of the information you pass onto billions of readers? 
• Do you realize the huge responsibility that is vested upon you to ensure that international relations are in good shape? 
• Do you realize that due to one single mistake of yours, you can actually turn the entire human mankind against one and another? 
• Do you realize you hold the reins to peace in the world? Leaders will always be there but its you who share an equal responsibility in ensuring thy are doing their job well
• Don't you think its high time you break out of the 'Breaking News' or 'Glossy pretentious Headlines' category by being more responsible in giving us better content?

I know there is competition among you guys as to who has more readership or who makes the most money, infact its all commercial interests, TRPs being the biggest draw for you but to falsely misuse the power given to you just for TRPs is not fair.

Well, there might be critics who think that its we, the readers or viewers who crave for such sensationalizing news but c'mon if you find such kind of people on one side of the coin, you will also find the more serious kind of audience on the other side who believe in ethical reporting.

'So what if we did it, so is everyone else?' might be your line of argument but if one of you takes the lead, days will not be far when everyone will follow. When the democracy trusts you to be responsible & gives you a free rein to report in your own way, don't you think you need to respect that & reciprocate similarly?

Its not difficult for the democracy i.e people like us to raise an objection & have the government put a stop to this by dissolving you of this power. One fine day, all the privileges might just be taken away from you & you might be forced to report under stringent rules & guidelines like how we have in some of the communist or under-developed countries. In other words, the government might just rule your content.Would you like that? Think about it!

When the politicians or leaders or the government intervenes to put a hold on anything you might have done unscrupulously, you make a big hue & cry about not being able to report unbiased, about not being given a free rein or being suppressed. That time your conscience suddenly awakens & you remember the definition of 'Democracy' just like how you were taught about it in 4th grade! And what do you do? You protest about Right Of Information? Duhhhhh!!!!

Nobody stops you from doing your job but do it with certain amount of responsibility. If you think, people have the right to know something wrong that you witnessed, go ahead & report it, we will appreciate it & it might even prompt the wrong-doers to put an end to their mis-givings & give us better governance. Just please don't sensationalize irrelevant or innocent stuff like the above example. Your reporting should bring the entire world closer, not drive them apart!

We have more relevant issues to deal with like Development, Infrastructure, Education, Economy, Terrorism etc (Again, do not sensationalize this issue, it only makes the terrorists crave for more media attention!). So its high time you look at the bigger picture & act with ethical conviction & inculcate a sense of moral behaviour!

We love you, make it stay that way!