Media and all that sort of thing.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Technically, this is in response to Anindita's post.

(I've always been terrible at group discussions. Things always get too heated for me to deal with, and more often than not I just shut up out of sheer embarrassment and an unwillingness to, well, shout.

That's just a musing, nothing to do with the discussion - the very lively discussion! - we had in class that day.)

The point I was trying to make during class that day - clearly and not surprisingly, I didn't make it well - is not that "extra details" are uncalled for, but that I don't think they're to be used to make judgments. Hell, I think nothing should be used to make a judgment - at least in newspapers, and I realise I'm being too starry-eyed idealistic here - but that's just me.

I also realise that in my bit of the presentation I did harp a bit too much on the Daily Mail article - but that's because I was downright appalled. By reporting like this:

Revealed: The shoddy caravan site where mother of murdered Goa teenager Scarlett brings up her unorthodox family

Yeah, that's what I was essentially objecting to. And:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-531289/Sorry-I-blame-Scarlett-Keelings-mother.html

Just a column, but still.

Also:

"The truth about 'Good Life' of murdered teenager Scarlett Keeling

An empty milk bottle, tie-dye sheets pinned over the window instead of curtains, discarded black bin liners and a sleeping bag on the floor, and the contents spewing carelessly from a chest of drawers.

On top of them the remnants of a lost childhood - a plastic duck and young girl's jewellery box.

As these pictures show, this is the squalor in which Scarlett Keeling was being raised.

It is a million miles from the fantasy world of a wholesome family upbringing painted by her mother Fiona MacKeown in the past two weeks. "


Oh, please.

Yeah, my objections are, shall we say, aesthetic. And whimsical.

I don't like the drama used in reporting. Can we stop "touching things up" all the time, please, and stop slipping in connotation and judgment all the time? I like a newspaper that respects its readers enough to let them make a judgment.

Again, I'd like to repeat that I don't mind the slipping in of the details of Fiona's marital life and so on : it's just the "oh, look, what a terrible mother Fiona is" bit that I object to. What the authorities suspect, the background of the incident - sure! bring them all on! - just don't say, "This is what we think, so you go ahead, think the same thing".

And yes, I do share Anindita's ambiguity about the whole "both sides" business...all I have to say is, don't pick a side at all.

I still stand by the notion that "saleability" isn't a criterion for "spicing" up details and news. I just don't want to even consider the whole "who's going to read it if I say it so boringly?" thing.

Because I still believe that news and reporting isn't something that's done commercially by definition. As in, I don't think someone should wake up one fine morning and say, "Hey, I'd like to make some money today, ooh, why don't I start a trashy newspaper!" . I think, and I like to believe, that reporting is something you do for its own sake. Because you're passionate about events and people and so on. Like teaching. I like to believe that you do it for kicks. Not for money, power, bla bla bla, but because of the simple reason that you like it.

Sneer at it if you will, but I'm going to hold on to the idealism.

=)

tra la la. byee!

(just had to say that, felt the earlier last line was too Solemn an ending.)

Life as it is…

Saturday, July 26, 2008

I’m sure all of us are aware of the current situation in India. I guess it is too early to point fingers or even figure out why this is happening.. But what one needs to understand is that this is Reality. The world is no more a bed of roses and the question of survival of the fittest(rather luckiest) seems to be the theme of the present life

In the words of Pascal “When we consider the short duration of life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which we fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which we are ignorant about, number of thoughts cross my mind what are we doing here? Does life end here or is it just temporary? Do I really exist?” Though this may seem very philosophical to some of you, do give it a thought….
If you think about it, why is there such a huge panic about these serial blasts? Some of you might wonder if I have completely lost my mind, But is anything that is happening new to us? Have we even given a second thought more than “Oh my God, how sad” when something similar happens in Iraq, Israel or the 9/11 incident? These kind of incidents do happen in today’s world and the sooner we learn to accept and stand up for it the better for us.Now just because reality has become visible to us we begin to panic. Shortly after the blasts when I happened to ask a friend what he was doing, he replied “ nothing I’m just hugging my family and watching the news,Im really scared the world might end soon”. Though this sounded sweet, to me it sounded a little strange.Din't these thoughts ever occur to him before the serial blasts?what happens to our courage when things go wrong? Do we see the better, and approve, But follow the worst?
Life is between these pendulums - the positive, the one that gives happiness and meaning, and the negative - that our lives are lived. And when we meditate about all that, we arrive at a diverse and disagreeing set of thoughts about the meaning and purpose of life.
To everything there are two sides of the coin. While some of us choose to be perturbed by the situations others will continue with the present with a sigh “hmmm,Life goes on”. Live each day as it comes and try not live tomorrow ,for tomorrow will take care of itself. I know this is easier said than done, but why not at least try?

There may be trouble ahead, But while there’s moonlight and music and love and romance, Let’s face the music and dance.
Irving Berlin, 1888-1989, American songwriter, Follow the Fleet

Book Review - Twilight

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Here's a really nice review of the book Twilight that I found.


I’ve never been in love with a vampire before, so why do I feel like I have? It seems I am yet another victim of American author Stephenie Meyer. Her weapon of choice? Her debut novel, Twilight, a sensual, inspired, young adult romance, has been widely described as “a vampire story for people who don’t like vampire stories.” Twilight is the rare type of novel which, despite the many labels thrust upon it, can be enjoyed by basically anybody, regardless of their preferences.

Bella Swan is an awkward seventeen year old girl, who “makes the cowardly lion look like the terminator.” In the beginning of the novel, Bella lives with her flighty mother Renee, in sunny Phoenix, avoiding any contact with the small, gloomy town of Forks where her father resides and where, “everything that is supposed to be brown is all covered up with squashy green stuff”. It’s not until Renee decides to travel around with her footballer fiancée, that, filled with low expectations and a heavy heart, Bella chooses to move to Forks.

Not everything is as dull as she first anticipated. To her irritation, she becomes fascinated by the inhumanly beautiful Cullen family, especially the youngest, Edward. It doesn’t take long for questions to arise about Edward and his family and it soon becomes apparent that they are particularly good natured vampires. Both of them are aware that the very act of them being in love with one another puts them both in danger, both physically and emotionally, but what they forget is that Edward and his family aren’t always the most dangerous things around.

Upon discovering that author, Stephenie Meyer had not so much as picked up a pen for six years prior to writing this novel, I was amazed. Her style of writing is relaxed while channeling all the appropriate emotions, sucking her audience into this beautiful story of true love. It took a particularly vivid dream to pull her away from her household obligations: two young lovers standing in a meadow, the boy, a vampire, the girl, a human, discussing the dangers of their being in love.

At even the briefest of visits to her official website, it becomes blatantly obvious that Stephenie Meyer holds an enormous amount of passion for the story she has been chosen to tell, even going as far as to compose a play list of songs which she hears In her head at reading her book. She has also created a list of actors she thinks could play her characters in the movie (though she doesn’t have any input in the film, which is still being considered for production by Warner Bros.)

After witnessing the intensity of Meyers dedication, it is no surprise that the atmosphere is so powerful; you don’t realize how involved you have become in the world of Twilight until you have finished reading. You begin to have what my friends (and fellow Twilight fans) and I, are beginning to refer to as ’withdrawals’. Withdrawals from the world of the self-conscious Bella and the charming Edward. Like it claims on the back cover blurb, “Twilight is an extraordinary love story which will stay with you long after you have turned the last page.”

I'll give you 100 bucks if you don't fall in love with Edward by the end of this book. - Mona :D

A long time later.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

H'm. Just to, eh, break the awkward silence that seems to have broken.

This semester seems to be so much more Grown-Up in a boring kind of way, so far! We're doing very grown-up stuff, particularly in CommE. Particularly compared to last year, when we could do practically anything we wanted in the writing sections, and be bizarre and all. :P

NOT that I'm saying we're going to be stiff-necked this year on, or something. (For example, I had a ball in the "Cover Letter" today, throwing in random pomposities). Its just that I miss the fun of first year, where everyone smiled indulgently at us and accepted with a laugh several eccentricities and more.

Anyway, as is obvious, I clearly have nothing much to say here. Except that I see that I've rambled on for quite a while. (Which, I have to say, I wouldn't find it in me to do in person).

Which brings me to something I've been noticing for a while. At least since I've started writing regularly, that is: the existence of the NehaOnPaper. As distinct from the NehaInPerson. Which is to say that I'm very different when I'm at a blank screen with a keyboard at hand (or a blank paper with pencil at hand) from what I'm like in person. I don't know what precisely, but I'm hazarding a guess it has something to do with a certain connotation of space blank screens and paper give me.

So tell me about you. Are you different at all on paper from what you're like in person? How? Which do you like better?