‘Your sadness is their rating’

TV Drowns – Unethical reporting during disaster

What will happen to you if you lose your house due to a flood? Surely you will feel as if you have lost a part of yourself and there is no future. What will be your reaction when someone asks you at that time, ”How are you feeling after losing your house?, Are you missing your belonging?” and their sole purpose will be to capture your emotions, they might even play a sad song to show your emotions. Most of us would get enraged due to the immature and childish questions from such people, obviously this is no drama but a real disaster!

Such type of reporting is common in the sub-continent where the ratings of a TV Channel are more important than anything else. They don’t care whether you are smiling, crying or even dying , for them emotion means rating.

Worldwide outrage over the video

Flood-victims are not for sitting!

Few weeks back, a video was circulating over the web that showed an Indian reporter covering the recent floods in Uttarakhand. The video shows that the person is sitting over the shoulders of a flood-victim while shouting out loud that the government is no where to be seen and these people are left at the mercy of the floods. The flood-victim who was carrying ‘this’ person was standing in the floodwaters while reporter kept yelling at the government. Why did the reporter sit on the shoulders of the poor flood-victim? because he didn’t want his legs to get wet!

Though on the other hand, the reporter said that the flood-victim offered him this ‘gesture’ so that the reporter can cross the floodwaters since he was the first person of ‘his level’ to come. The reporter has even lashed out at the cameraman as he showed the full footage.

Media doesnt really care!

There are no words to describe this inhuman act of this person. The good news is that India’s News Channel has ‘terminated’ his contract but we all have seen the unethical reporting in the time of disaster so this wont be a last time such things come from the media of Sub-continent.