Prince Harry’s romance with the Hollywood starlet Markle comes as no surprise; his great grand uncle did marry a divorcee Mary Simpson and abdicated the throne. Prince Harry runs no such risk; the royalty does not bother about his marrying a commoner, his senior by three years, that too a divorcee starlet because times are different now.
Prince Harry’s romance with the Hollywood starlet Markle comes as no surprise; his great grand uncle did marry a divorcee Mary Simpson and abdicated the throne. Prince Harry runs no such risk; the royalty does not bother about his marrying a commoner, his senior by three years, that too a divorcee starlet because times are different now.
Two decades ago a royal romance with a starlet shook the tinsel world and a tiny kingdom. It is a long story. A bored London press reporter planned to take a paid vacation in Europe and demanded an assignment from his Editor to cover the Film Festival that was going on in Monaco. It turned out that the Festival was drab, and nothing newsworthy was happening.
The reporter decided to create news, without bothering to wait for it to happen. The yester year film star Grace Kelly, known for her sleek beauty and infectious charm, was in town with no male star in tow. She and Prince Rainier of Monaco were staying in the same hotel. This reporter asked Prince Rainer if he knew Grace Kelly was staying in the same hotel and if he had met her. The Prince said no but added that he would be glad to meet her. The reporter asked Grace Kelly the same question, and she too said she would be glad to meet him. To make a long story short, they met, fell in love and got married. This was a coup, the circulation of the paper shot up, and Prince Rainier invited him to be the best man in his wedding.
Disenchanted with the drab events which do not make good headlines, the Media these days, particularly the visual ones, are, forced to create, or rather facilitate certain happenings which result in sensational news items. Rich and copious fodder is required for the 24 hour TV channels and the ad-hungry newspapers. They cannot go on printing the speeches of Narendra Modi ( who repeats himself or keeps silence over explosive issues)), the stale comments of Rahul Gandhi or the tantrums of Mamta Banerjee without tiring their readers. The tragi comic happenings in Tamilnadu after Jayalalita’s death is coming to an end. The newspapers need some real bones to bite like the UP minister accused of sodomy or a Gokulnath Shetty siphoning off 10,000 crores or more to the Nirav Modis, the Rajasthan Minister urinating in public or a HRD Minister trying to prove Darwin wrong. Let us concede our netas are newspaper-friendly and oblige the media with corruption cases regularly, but even that stales. The cow vigilantes and the odd teenage rape artists add spice to an otherwise dull front pages or the odd TV screens.
Let us not forget the RSS old guards who rake up dormant controversies and enliven the newspaper pages. Or the female protaganists who raise hell at the mere mention of a rape in a remote UP village. Or the caste panchayats who order honour killings just as they do for parottas at roadside food stalls. Then Vijai Mallyas, Lalith and Arav Modis who manipulate and cheat the banks are good feed for a dull weekend but millions ( rupees or dollars) have ceased to surprise the readers. They are not impressed by the series of zero’s in the fraudulent dealings.
Even terrorist attacks are losing their lustre. How many terror attacks can you report routinely giving the number of the dead and the injured and the name of the terrorist outfit? There is no sting. The Indian fisher men attacked and arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy, repeated day after day, and the Central government refusing, day after day, to comment on it, is losing its news value. Seeing the plight of the sub editors, our god men, like Bapu Asaram or Babu Ram Rahim or Swami Nithyananda sometimes help, by raping a devotee here or a minor girl there. But they too have their limitations.
Romances, the illicit kind, make good news. Husbands running away with other men’s wives have average news value , but you can’t fill it on the front page or in bold headlines. Our newspapers will salute the true lovers if they happen to belong to different communities. They will shed crocodile tears for the star crossed lovers; copiously if one of the lovers is abducted or honor-killed by the relatives of one community. The newspapers will express their fervent wish that this love episode, though tragic, should not result in a bloody clash. As they secretly hoped, they will get the bloody clash the next day, and they will gloat over reports of police excesses which had resulted in the death of a couple of people. Again the newspapers can busy themselves blaming the police and the government, bemoaning the fate of true lovers. They will, after milking the issue dry, agree with the politicians who demand an enquiry commission into the whole episode and allow the issue to die.
During winter our sub editors are keeping their fingers crossed, waiting for some bloody clashes along Pakistan and China borders, and when it happens, they jump into action demanding immediate Indian retaliation and castigating the Government of India for not escalating the incident into a full-fledged war. Of course our Parliament will go to their help by raising hell and forcing our Speaker to quit the House in disgust. There are experts waiting on the sidelines to give their considered opinion on the border clashes in the newspaper columns or in the TV panel discussions. These sideline experts arrive at dubious conclusions blaming the govt, the people, the working of democracy, the judiciary, everybody except themselves. You would never guess what they are trying to convey to us.
Sometimes it happens that the print and visual media are starving for a fortnight without a good disaster; our government used to come to their aid by raising the price of diesel and petrol. FUEL PRICES TOUCH THE SKIES the newspapers bombarded the country. Now that has come to an end as fuel prices rise or fall by a paisa or two.
If all else fails, either the Laskar e Toiba or Dawood Ibrahim comes to the aid of the media. They will send suicide bombers to our northern cities, destroy shops and kill people so the newspapers will create headlines. How considerate!
They say it is no news if dog bites man; let the man bite the dog to grab the headlines. The problem is lots of men are biting dogs, Newspapers sometimes are baffled which news to print.
Two decades ago a royal romance with a starlet shook the tinsel world and a tiny kingdom. It is a long story. A bored London press reporter planned to take a paid vacation in Europe and demanded an assignment from his Editor to cover the Film Festival that was going on in Monaco. It turned out that the Festival was drab, and nothing newsworthy was happening.
The reporter decided to create news, without bothering to wait for it to happen. The yester year film star Grace Kelly, known for her sleek beauty and infectious charm, was in town with no male star in tow. She and Prince Rainier of Monaco were staying in the same hotel. This reporter asked Prince Rainer if he knew Grace Kelly was staying in the same hotel and if he had met her. The Prince said no but added that he would be glad to meet her. The reporter asked Grace Kelly the same question, and she too said she would be glad to meet him. To make a long story short, they met, fell in love and got married. This was a coup, the circulation of the paper shot up, and Prince Rainier invited him to be the best man in his wedding.
Disenchanted with the drab events which do not make good headlines, the Media these days, particularly the visual ones, are, forced to create, or rather facilitate certain happenings which result in sensational news items. Rich and copious fodder is required for the 24 hour TV channels and the ad-hungry newspapers. They cannot go on printing the speeches of Narendra Modi ( who repeats himself or keeps silence over explosive issues)), the stale comments of Rahul Gandhi or the tantrums of Mamta Banerjee without tiring their readers. The tragi comic happenings in Tamilnadu after Jayalalita’s death is coming to an end. The newspapers need some real bones to bite like the UP minister accused of sodomy or a Gokulnath Shetty siphoning off 10,000 crores or more to the Nirav Modis, the Rajasthan Minister urinating in public or a HRD Minister trying to prove Darwin wrong. Let us concede our netas are newspaper-friendly and oblige the media with corruption cases regularly, but even that stales. The cow vigilantes and the odd teenage rape artists add spice to an otherwise dull front pages or the odd TV screens.
Let us not forget the RSS old guards who rake up dormant controversies and enliven the newspaper pages. Or the female protaganists who raise hell at the mere mention of a rape in a remote UP village. Or the caste panchayats who order honour killings just as they do for parottas at roadside food stalls. Then Vijai Mallyas, Lalith and Arav Modis who manipulate and cheat the banks are good feed for a dull weekend but millions ( rupees or dollars) have ceased to surprise the readers. They are not impressed by the series of zero’s in the fraudulent dealings.
Even terrorist attacks are losing their lustre. How many terror attacks can you report routinely giving the number of the dead and the injured and the name of the terrorist outfit? There is no sting. The Indian fisher men attacked and arrested by the Sri Lankan Navy, repeated day after day, and the Central government refusing, day after day, to comment on it, is losing its news value. Seeing the plight of the sub editors, our god men, like Bapu Asaram or Babu Ram Rahim or Swami Nithyananda sometimes help, by raping a devotee here or a minor girl there. But they too have their limitations.
Romances, the illicit kind, make good news. Husbands running away with other men’s wives have average news value , but you can’t fill it on the front page or in bold headlines. Our newspapers will salute the true lovers if they happen to belong to different communities. They will shed crocodile tears for the star crossed lovers; copiously if one of the lovers is abducted or honor-killed by the relatives of one community. The newspapers will express their fervent wish that this love episode, though tragic, should not result in a bloody clash. As they secretly hoped, they will get the bloody clash the next day, and they will gloat over reports of police excesses which had resulted in the death of a couple of people. Again the newspapers can busy themselves blaming the police and the government, bemoaning the fate of true lovers. They will, after milking the issue dry, agree with the politicians who demand an enquiry commission into the whole episode and allow the issue to die.
During winter our sub editors are keeping their fingers crossed, waiting for some bloody clashes along Pakistan and China borders, and when it happens, they jump into action demanding immediate Indian retaliation and castigating the Government of India for not escalating the incident into a full-fledged war. Of course our Parliament will go to their help by raising hell and forcing our Speaker to quit the House in disgust. There are experts waiting on the sidelines to give their considered opinion on the border clashes in the newspaper columns or in the TV panel discussions. These sideline experts arrive at dubious conclusions blaming the govt, the people, the working of democracy, the judiciary, everybody except themselves. You would never guess what they are trying to convey to us.
Sometimes it happens that the print and visual media are starving for a fortnight without a good disaster; our government used to come to their aid by raising the price of diesel and petrol. FUEL PRICES TOUCH THE SKIES the newspapers bombarded the country. Now that has come to an end as fuel prices rise or fall by a paisa or two.
If all else fails, either the Laskar e Toiba or Dawood Ibrahim comes to the aid of the media. They will send suicide bombers to our northern cities, destroy shops and kill people so the newspapers will create headlines. How considerate!
They say it is no news if dog bites man; let the man bite the dog to grab the headlines. The problem is lots of men are biting dogs, Newspapers sometimes are baffled which news to print.