The rate at which the retired IAS, IPS officers, self-styled socialites and celebrities, politicians, businessmen and even hoodlums are making it to the edit pages and studios, it seems journos will soon be out of business.
The articles of 'celebrities' like KPS Gill who was booked for allegedly groping a woman appear on edit pages along with their photos and sermonize the society.
Retired babus like Joginder Singh, 'politicians' Jaya Jaitley, Arun Nehru, 'socialite' Suhel Seth may come from different streams but have slowly graduated from op-ed to editorial page and regularly appear on these pages.
The people who ruined our system in the last 59 years have now replaced the academicians and scholars to become professional writers who can churn out 500-600 words on any topic.
It started with Sports when cricketers began writing columns and soon they eclipsed others. Now the situation is getting out of hand.
And their sons and daughters are also becoming journos with quite an ease. In English journalism probably we wouldn't find middle-class journos or those from poor, humble background in future.
So what will be the face of journalism five to ten years from now? Will it be all P-3 with little conviction or may be I am just being cynic and unnecessarily concerned.
You may even assume that I am jealous of the bureaucrats who easily get into TV studios and after failing to do anything positive for decades while in service, lecture us and become opinion makers.
2 comments:
Hang in there, mate. No worries. At least not in the short term, for the edit and op-ed pages have ceased to matter so far as newspapers and their readers are concerned (speaking with the veritable pinch-of-salt that any self-respecting journo is supposed to possess). Look how the page/s have been trashed to some pullout by the ‘biggest selling English daily’, published from the country’s ‘biggest media stable’ — as they never forget to re-re-re-re-remind us at every given half-opportunity (even for a trainee space-seller’s vacancy advert placed in Ascent; check today’s Ascent for instance). So far as I know, save for a couple of papers like Hindu none places any importance to it — they are either trashed with trash, or ‘lifted’ Yankee-smelling hogwash. And, honestly, even my father has stopped reading those pages, so I am not too sure about their future!
But rest assured about the future of newspaper (and hacks). And, for some more reassurance, take this from Bill-the-Gates: "I'm sure it will be more than 50 years when somebody is still printing a newspaper and taking it to someone, somewhere." (That’s from an Independent interview. Here’s the link: http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article352292.ece)
Shame .
We should throw these PIGS out.
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