The danger of jingoism

What adds fuel to the already existing depression due to the recent mumbai terror attacks is the jingoistic and nationalistic opinions of wide sections of the media.  There are news links out there which seemingly report what they hear as “black and white” and severely attempt to bias public perspective on the whole issue. Only a handful of journalists try to assess the situation as “grey and hazy” and provide a balanced and reasonable report. 

In a report to Reuters India, B. Manjula, chair of the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences states “Everyone is being led to believe that by lighting a candle or carrying a poster they’ve done their part as a dutiful citizen without questioning whose opinion they are pandering to … their actions only make for great visuals for TV. This is a complex issue with various dimensions to it. Simply reducing it to ‘politicians are villains’ and ‘Pakistan is the enemy’ without discourse or debate is a deep failing of the media, but it does influence public opinion.” 

What she says clearly shows the impact of jingoistic and mediocre media influence. The day when the media understands its responsibility in reporting to the public is a dream now. It is all about advertising, marketing and cashing in on the heat of a hopeless situation.  Very few attempt to accept the complexity involved in execution and the implications/motivations of an attack on such scale [1] [2] [3].  If at all an increased hostility between India and Pakistan is what the perpetrators of the attack want, we have ignorant and idotic media working exactly towards that. Sad state of affairs.