Jalsa , Mumbai June 1 , 2012 Fri 11 : 18 PM
Home at last after a long but comfortable ride, a quick catching up on events and issues and into bed for an afternoon siesta. A film on the UFO on getting up, learning what has transpired since my departure and now the connect, the most important issue of the day !!
I wish to regret all the coded destinations during this absence, but they are not without cause. Firstly travel details have been asked by security to not reveal and the other is the news value that such incidents generate. A wrong inference, a suggested purpose, a perceived impression, has the capacity in todays massive media cycle to lead people to believe what they read. Media will inform, it shall investigate and perhaps at times will intrude. It is their prerogative. Good issues do not create interesting programming, the sensational does, not just here in our country, but all over the world. Celebrity interest is not just an Indian phenomena, it is world wide too. If you are celebrity, this is the cross you shall perforce have to carry with a smile. Do no wrong and you shall be safe, but be prepared for the worst even when a small wrong has been done. Celebrities are not some outer world aliens, they are as human as you and me. Mistakes and errors will be made and shall be highlighted. The courage and strength to continuously face it, is what counts. Some do a marvelous job, others succumb. Some make light of it, others get affected. Each has his or her own way of dealing with it. But this must be remembered. Printed in black and white and seen now in color on screens of idiot boxes, is a record for posterity and eternal. Whether it is right or wrong is not the issue. What has been registered is registered for life and beyond too. Those that still live have opportunity to bear and deal with it as should they would. Those that have left us for heavenly abode, are not present today to defend or clarify an accusation or an opinion they may have disagreed with. There are codes of conduct, both for the mass and for the media. The right to follow it or interpret its presence shall remain with the present. But when those that are not with us today are brought on to the picture, I feel it to be an unethical motive. In film and general life it may be taken as an issue, that perhaps needs respect. In matters of State and Country, perhaps it would be more difficult and different.
Media impressions are words inscribed on stone – extremely difficult to erase. The first impression and deliverance is the most vital. It is the impression that is first read and refuses to leave us, no matter how hard one may try later with qualified clarifications. You may eventually be proved innocent of a crime, but once instituted, or first accused, counts in a peculiar way to its longevity. The task then of the fourth estate is as onerous and responsible as protecting state confidential secrets, or to put it more explicitly – the operation of a nuclear device ! And this does not only hold good for us menials ; it holds good for the media too. Lose credibility and it can take you a lifetime to correct it, as has been seen and observed not too late recently, in the electronic media.
Till recently too the media had the medium to protect, change, clarify, negate an issue gone wrong. They were the masters of what went out to the polity. With the cyber in space, it may not have been evenly balanced out yet. But a percentage, a gentle dent has been made, which gives people like you and me to reach out and speak out and air out our side of the story.
Ha ha ha !!! On the Twitter I read a good one and wish the media to take it in their most large hearted stride. The quote stated – ” Television a medium, not rare and not well done either ” !!
But this has to be said – the understanding among the 12,293 journalists of the nation, much like that of the medical profession, is exemplary. It shall be most difficult to penetrate or break it. And if this is a discipline that none can break, why cannot the rest of the nation follow similar trend ..
This one rare, but needs to be done well for us all ..
Love
Amitabh Bachchan
Home at last after a long but comfortable ride, a quick catching up on events and issues and into bed for an afternoon siesta. A film on the UFO on getting up, learning what has transpired since my departure and now the connect, the most important issue of the day !!
I wish to regret all the coded destinations during this absence, but they are not without cause. Firstly travel details have been asked by security to not reveal and the other is the news value that such incidents generate. A wrong inference, a suggested purpose, a perceived impression, has the capacity in todays massive media cycle to lead people to believe what they read. Media will inform, it shall investigate and perhaps at times will intrude. It is their prerogative. Good issues do not create interesting programming, the sensational does, not just here in our country, but all over the world. Celebrity interest is not just an Indian phenomena, it is world wide too. If you are celebrity, this is the cross you shall perforce have to carry with a smile. Do no wrong and you shall be safe, but be prepared for the worst even when a small wrong has been done. Celebrities are not some outer world aliens, they are as human as you and me. Mistakes and errors will be made and shall be highlighted. The courage and strength to continuously face it, is what counts. Some do a marvelous job, others succumb. Some make light of it, others get affected. Each has his or her own way of dealing with it. But this must be remembered. Printed in black and white and seen now in color on screens of idiot boxes, is a record for posterity and eternal. Whether it is right or wrong is not the issue. What has been registered is registered for life and beyond too. Those that still live have opportunity to bear and deal with it as should they would. Those that have left us for heavenly abode, are not present today to defend or clarify an accusation or an opinion they may have disagreed with. There are codes of conduct, both for the mass and for the media. The right to follow it or interpret its presence shall remain with the present. But when those that are not with us today are brought on to the picture, I feel it to be an unethical motive. In film and general life it may be taken as an issue, that perhaps needs respect. In matters of State and Country, perhaps it would be more difficult and different.
Media impressions are words inscribed on stone – extremely difficult to erase. The first impression and deliverance is the most vital. It is the impression that is first read and refuses to leave us, no matter how hard one may try later with qualified clarifications. You may eventually be proved innocent of a crime, but once instituted, or first accused, counts in a peculiar way to its longevity. The task then of the fourth estate is as onerous and responsible as protecting state confidential secrets, or to put it more explicitly – the operation of a nuclear device ! And this does not only hold good for us menials ; it holds good for the media too. Lose credibility and it can take you a lifetime to correct it, as has been seen and observed not too late recently, in the electronic media.
Till recently too the media had the medium to protect, change, clarify, negate an issue gone wrong. They were the masters of what went out to the polity. With the cyber in space, it may not have been evenly balanced out yet. But a percentage, a gentle dent has been made, which gives people like you and me to reach out and speak out and air out our side of the story.
Ha ha ha !!! On the Twitter I read a good one and wish the media to take it in their most large hearted stride. The quote stated – ” Television a medium, not rare and not well done either ” !!
But this has to be said – the understanding among the 12,293 journalists of the nation, much like that of the medical profession, is exemplary. It shall be most difficult to penetrate or break it. And if this is a discipline that none can break, why cannot the rest of the nation follow similar trend ..
This one rare, but needs to be done well for us all ..
Love
Amitabh Bachchan
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