Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!

For something serious now. Yes you will find trickles of sense in my world.

The news channels were buzzing with reports of the shootings at Delhi’s Euro School. Eighth standard kids gunning down a fellow student in calculated, cold blood. That makes them 13 or 14, right?

This gets us all playing the blame game...
So who do we blame… because that’s the next obvious step right?

News channels flash extremely important things–Comments from viewers.
It’s interesting to read them because it shows us how far removed we are. Viewers (we) think the youth themselves are to blame, parents are losing control and violent films are clouding their minds.

Not shockingly I asked myself …Who do I blame?
The answer sneaked up on me quite quickly, and before I attempt to put my foot in my mouth. This is just my opinion.

While in school, I remember, we were encouraged to watch the news. It gave us knowledge to battle the school quiz. It helped us become aware of our evolving world. But then, we were limited to one news bulletin at 9.00 pm. We got a news reader giving us details with a little footage and that’s it. We were content.

Today, the story has changed a little; a part of it has, at least. Yes, kids are still encouraged to watch the news for the same reasons, but then what are we exposing them too. Certain scenes of news footage have the ability to shock and disgust my sensibility. And mind you, my sensibility is very numbed.

What effect then can we expect it to have on children who are evolving? What kind of images are we giving them to model themselves on? If graphic footage is to be shown, show it once not a million times. If unedited footage has to be shown (like in the Bombay train blast coverage), instead of repeatedly telling us that the footage is unedited and subjecting us to shows of red blood oozing from human bodies, dead people being carried away or lying on tracks. Please make the time to edit. One or two instances of using unedited gory images or videos to make the viewer look at your channel make the viewer understand the scene; give the viewer a feel of the situation is fine. But then who gets to decide when it is warranted.

The question here is not of delivering news, is it? Sensationalizing news, that too, we cannot blame, but my question is: are we equipped to handle the influx of such news? Are kids equipped to deal with what they watch on the news? When you show these scenes too many times doesn’t then the mind come to think of it as something common? Doesn’t it then lose what we call its shock value? When this numbening happens doesn’t it then become mundane? And when things become mundane don’t you think it can easily be translated into your life?

Here’s something to think about.
If I remember correctly there has been repeated coverage of the student shootings in the USA on all important news channels. If I remember correctly the last one was the Omaha mall shooting on CNN IBN. How many times was that shown? I don’t remember. How far apart is the Delhi shooting from that incident?

Munch on this for a while.