Dec 22, 2005 09:25 AM
3541 Views
(Updated Dec 22, 2005 09:28 AM)
The poor girls have already been humiliated by the police who beat them up in public for going to a park in Meerut. NDTV, Headlines Today and Zee News (Hindi) add insult to injury by repeatedly showing the faces of the victims in their news programmes.
What are the TV channels trying to achieve? Social justice or TRP ratings? NDTV has been showing this as the lead story for the past 2 days. Apparently, they feel this is an issue of police high-handedness and uncalled for in a free society. So far, so good. But why do they have to show the faces of the victims again and again throughout their news? Why humiliate these woman further? Blurring out the faces of these woman will not take away any of impact they are trying to create. For the record, Star News (Hindi) is the only channel which has blurred the faces of the victims. Hats off to them!
If NDTV is trying to bring out the injustice that has been done to these girls, they have totally failed. They have further tarnished the image of these girls. So much so that one of the couples are yet to return home after their faces were splashed across the TV channels. Even after this incident, NDTV has still not thought it fit to blur the images of the hapless victims.
This is totally irresponsible of the leading English News channel in India. All that the channel is interested is in viewership. In achieving that objective, if they tarnish the image of a few people, they just do not care. What about journalistic ethics? What about your principles? Barkha, who has championed many a fight against the injustice towards women (the latest I can remember is the jeans ban at the Anna University campus and the status of women in Armed Forces), how can you be so callous and insensitive to the plight of these women?!!!
If any the NDTV journalists were caught in a similar situation (I am sure they also go to parks once in a while), would they have liked it if their footage was shown across all TV channels for 2 days? Spare some thought for the poor victims. By virtue of your profession, you know much more about the social and cultural milieu all of us are living in. For your own commercial gains, why spoil the future of these girls?
As much as the policewomen who were confused about what is right and what is wrong while beating up the women in Meerut, the news channels are equally incapable of deciding what is right and wrong in this case!
