Recently, I saw
a movie named Kill The Messenger. It is the story of Gary Webb, an honest
journalist who came upon a story involving the Central Intelligence Agency’s
involvement in widespread distribution of drugs sourced from Nicaragua. These
drugs were traded for arms and weapons that the US Government was sending in
order to fuel a civil war. The drugs were in turn, being sold to certain sections
of the public. Webb’s story shook the CIA’s very foundations. Despite, threats
to his family, coercion and blackmail, Webb went ahead and published his
article which quite obviously took the entire United States of America by storm.
But the pressure that was put on his employer by the CIA and various Government
officials meant that there was an apology issued by the Newspaper that he
worked for apologizing for the factual inaccuracies in Webb’s report. After he
resigned from his job, not surprisingly, nobody offered him employment. The
worst part in all of this is that Webb was found dead in his apartment with two
bullet shots in his head. The police ruled it as suicide. Funny, isn’t it? How
can a man shoot himself once and in the head and survive to shoot himself
again?
Webb’s story wasn’t
the end of this. It resulted in widespread demand for answers and even for the
CIA’s main man to step down. Further investigation confirmed that the CIA was
indeed responsible for the distribution and the sale of narcotics in the state
of California. The entire investigative report was published for the public to
read BUT, guess what happened. The report was given scant importance. Do you
know why??? Because, the entire nation was lapping up juicy details of the
Clinton-Lewinsky affair. The entire 51 states of the USA were busy reading
about Clinton’s semen staining the sheets. The entire country was keen on
knowing where Lewinsky is at the moment. And were gushing about how well
Hillary Clinton took this so called ‘tragedy’. Was it really so important that
a major racket involving the Country’s foremost Intelligence Agency being
busted was given a small column in the 4th or 5th page of
every daily???
This is exactly
what is happening in our country too. The media is screaming their throats
hoarse that India is becoming an intolerant country but not focusing on other
more important issues. One or two stray incidents are given so much national
coverage that issues that need Public attention get sidelined and sometimes
even dismissed. We are a nation of 1.3 billion people. That’s 1/6th
of the world’s population. Much as this may sound harsh, stray incidents will
happen. But to create and paint a nation-wide picture that we are an intolerant
country seems like something is amiss. And do these victims need justice? Of
course they do. If the media is going to help them get the justice they
deserve, then great. But that’s not what the media does. Let me ask you a
question. How does one rape make it to the news and another doesn’t? How does
one hate crime make it while another doesn’t? Because, that’s what the media
really does. It identifies and selects which incidents will capture public attention
and TRP ratings and focus only on those and side-by-side, which incidents will
take the nation’s attention away from more important events. By sensationalizing
such stories, isn’t it obvious that something big is escaping our much-needed
attention??? We need to wake up and really read the smaller articles that get
covered. There is always a hidden agenda when minor incidents get covered and
sensationalized. Read that newspaper more carefully for clues. Today, the ‘trending’
topic is intolerance. Just like after the Nirbhaya Incident, the trending word
was rape. A few months ago it was about Religious Conversion. A few years ago
it was hate crimes against lovers and the Khap Panchayats. Neither of these
issues has gone away. They remain as much rampant as they always were. They are
not trendy enough at the moment and hence don’t get covered as much. Heinous
crimes are not to be trivialized but neither are they to be sensationalized to
the extent where it threatens to cause deep-rooted hatred between us. Collectively,
we need to take a rational stand against criminals. If we can, we should use
our strength of numbers to show our unity to our so called leaders, and not to
destroy one another.
My honest
submission to you is this. Don’t get distracted. Don’t feed thoughts of
mistrust and negativity against one community or another based on what you see
or hear. If they say half-baked information is dangerous, then manipulative
misinformation is nothing short of suicide. It is the collective suicide of
intellect, compassion, tolerance and intelligence.
