After a long time of keeping away from television news channels I accidentally switched on the television to watch what was going on. Ho-hum, it’s been a while; let me see what they are up to, has anything changed?
Imagine what I saw on a prominent Indian news channel? Wonder of wonders, a three or four year-old child who addicted to alcohol. Of all the hypes I have seen in my more than four decades of hyperbolic life, this one wins hands down. The presenter went blah, blah, blah in all earnestness. No, it wasn’t a passing reference, but the issue hogged prime time with interviews with the father who went to great lengths to defend his child. He made it sound as if it is quite normal for a child to have a few drinks every evening.
You know, things like, if it is good for the child’s health then it’s okay. How did the child get into this habit? When the family was on a holiday in some remote region, where medical help wasn’t available. Ergo the child had to be given a few pegs. Okay, okay, so the child was healed but why couldn’t the parents deny the deadly potion once they got back from wherever no medicines were available?
And, these are the news channels that tom-tom a great deal about in-depth analysis of breaking stories of national importance. Now, as I watched aghast, the said channel went into overkill and interviewed a doctor and some sundry experts about the child’s ill-gotten habits. But not a word about the ills of drinking, which has been the reasons families have been disrupted, fortunes lost and, most importantly, been the cause of marital discords. And, pray, what is such trivia doing on national prime time?
I am not an expert on ethics, so I wouldn’t venture into those areas. But is this ethical? Again, I feign ignorance.
prime time|Indian news channel
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