February 18, 2011

The front-page

The first thing I like to do in the morning is to check the newspaper. No, my interest is not to know the things of ‘importance’ going on in the world. I search for little interesting articles and news, editorials, reviews, essays etc. I enjoy the inner pages of the newspaper more than the front-page. Sometimes I do not even care to look at it and directly switch to pages of interest. However, more than often as I take the newspaper in hand or click on its website, the headline dutifully acts its purpose and catches my attention. I give a look at it, and then turn the page. Well, no harm in staying a bit updated about the world. But unfortunately, the effect mostly is not on updating my little knowledge about the socio-political-economic scenario of the country and world. More than often, it fails to generate any response from me. And when there is a response it unhappily is a negative one. I cannot use words to describe my thoughts then, it is not sadness, anger, helplessness, or even frustration. I just know it doesn’t give me any reason to be happy or positive. Maybe instead of being aware, I just feel uninterested.

Two days ago, the headline was about some horrible crime and neglect of duty on the part of the responsible officers. And two days after, it is still the same news. The news makes me sad for the family who underwent the tragedy. The society of course needs to know the news to be aware of incidents like that, to protest and be alert of their rights. The society needs to know its evil to be able to try to reform itself. What bothers me are those several articles talking about the same thing under different headlines and filling the first page. The entire front-page has the same negative story written over and over.

I understand that newspapers have this duty to bring to us news about events that have effects the country, society, and ultimately us. Unfortunately, we are living in this time of unrest where the incidents are mostly negative. I do understand the role the media played in bringing attentiveness, justice in certain recent examples. And above all, I understand they write what sells. I do not complain or criticize the media on bringing the negative news. I complain and criticize them for not bringing any positive news on the front-page. A few of the little negative stories can well be replaced with the small positive stories that go unnoticed hidden in some middle pages. Cannot breaking news leave a bit space for a modest story to be glad about in the morning?

I do want all the news on the front-page that is affecting us, a person, a society. I do want to be aware and remain alert. But this is definitely not all what I want. I also want a reason to hope. I wish not to be reminded every morning only about the turmoil around us, but wish to find also a reason for optimism. Besides the pictures of violence, protest, failure, selfishness, lies, I also want to see at least a small picture of triumph, discovery, selflessness, care and compassion. If not with every story of despair, at least for a few of such stories I want a story of hope too. It is not that our world lost everything positive. Everyday these little hopeful stories happen. They are also reported, but only remain somewhere hidden. All I wish is that this glad story gets a front-page space too, so that I do not have to go searching for it. I wish we start our morning with the awareness of all the chaos around us, mixed with some cheerfulness. Can we have some happy news brought back to the front-page please?

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