Letter to BS: Indian news channels are busy fostering hatred and negativity

This refers to “The fires that Indian news television lit” (December 18). The author has rightly pointed out the pitfalls that the Indian television media currently faces and how the whole purpose of its existence is being defied. If a picture is worth a thousand words then going by McQuivey’s Forrester study, a video would be worth 1.8 million words. This explains why the reach of television is way more than that of newspapers. Despite the far-reaching impact the news channels can have, they are busy fostering hatred and negativity. In the past few years, the Indian economy has witnessed several changes on the political, economic, and social fronts. Good or bad, these changes have hardly been taken positively by the masses. Going by the  developments following the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, it is facing flak from different parts of the country. The incidents of violence have traumatised the nation and raised a question mark over the role the news channels could have played by moderating the whole fiasco.
 
Clearing the air of confusion by imparting education on the said matter could have sensitised people. These problems could have been avoided if the channels gave less importance to their ratings and to attracting sponsors. What direction a channel will take depends on who owns it, since the majority have affiliations to political parties, and that means the channels are no less than spokespeople. The suggestions offered by the author to fix the Indian news television problems can be fruitful only if implemented with sincere efforts.
 
Ankita Kalia, Chandigarh

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