Quick Bytes: Indian Journalists Should Stop Being Lazy

Why are our Indian journalists so lazy? They refurbish stuff from news agencies like Reuters, hold some debates, and consider their job done. After a year or two, they forget what they reported in the past and make contradictory claims. Most are not well informed. They stick to one viewpoint. In the process, their viewers, i.e., us, suffer as we do not get a well-rounded perspective of current events, only a biased one.

When will we get a journalist who actually wants to help us understand the complete picture? At the moment, we have to resort to using multiple news sources for left, right, and centrist views. We are in dire need of a journalist who is pro-India in the sense they do not conduct any irresponsible journalism through hatemongering that can affect the social fabric of the country. Someone who gives us a side-by-side comparison of the rightist and leftist viewpoints and lets us, the viewer, decide what is right and wrong instead of feeding it to us in the form of polarizing “opinions”?

It’s almost election time, and no journalist or news media outlet has yet come out with a detailed study on what the parties have done for each state and its districts over the past five years. Where are the pros and cons? How many items in manifestos have been fulfilled so far?

We have so many journalists in this country. Yet, no one has made a detailed, well-researched, balanced list of achievements and criticisms of the various parties in the country. We get to see only the plain ol’ (but easy) hatemongering. They leave it upon us to do the hurdlesome, yet important, research.

I wish Indian journalists spent less time on debates and more time studying and providing citizens with material to help us, the voters, understand the actual work done by our politicians. By that, I mean a balanced take. Not a biased communal one. A tabled list of all the infra projects, health care, education facilities, and other tangible developments in the country, along with promises that weren’t fulfilled.

Do better, Indian media!

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