The media reports news. For it to grab your attention, the print and electronic media has to make the news sound as dramatic as possible to stay in business and make money.
So is it only about making money? It could also be to compete for power and influence. Most media people bitch about each other as they do about others. Again, like any other industry, you cannot subject them to generalisations. Like there are good, bad, ugly filmmakers, there will be good, bad and ugly media people. Eventually, they are all human.
Basically, the media strips people. Journalists can hardly conceal the glee in their eyes when they detect negative news. The worse the better, since that will attract more readers. Have you ever noticed the sheer pleasure reviewers get in ripping movies and film personalities apart? But wait a minute. Film people are much worse.
For all the anger film people show against critics, it is they who relish the bitchy reviews much more than the readers do. A filmmaker, by his very nature, cannot bear to see anyone else being successful except himself. Even those who have achieved nothing in cinema or in life, are very thrilled when a filmmaker is ripped to shreds. I truly think I deserve tremendous credit for creating a project such as Aag. It enabled the media to dish out fantastic enterainment to the readers and the film industry. If it had been a damn good film, it would have been forgotten by now. But no, I am always reminded of Aag, with gloating smiles.
The fear of ridicule is much more intense in the film industry, thanks to the media. No one is interested in why a certain project of a hotelier or textile merchant crashed. But if a filmmaker makes a flop, it’s reported in excruciating detail. Fair enough: the media is also responsible for the fame it gives to filmmakers.
Reporting is a truly thankless job. Day after day, hour after hour, pages, satellite screens and websites have to be filled, at the expense of being ruthlessy competitive. It doesn’t matter if the news is scandalous, or the person who is being hurt is known to the reporter on a personal level.
Also, when a sensational story is whiffed, the journalist’s first fear is that it will denied. Still that doesn’t prevent the journalist from breaking the news, even if it is a rumour or idle gossip.
At the same time, to use the media, film celebrities open their doors to journalists and become informants about their colleagues, planting fake stories at times. In this way, journalists lose their objectivity and get embroiled in the camp culture of the industry.
On the brighter side, I believe neither us film folk or the media are all that bad. At least, we are entertaining the public. If the news is a blatant lie or half-lie, what’s the big deal? If the common man’s interest is in knowing who slept with whom, and who slapped whom, the media will supply it. And the film industry folk will supply it to the media. It’s a fantastic threesome. I suppose, we are all just doing our jobs.