With close to a thousand TV channels broadcasting 24X7, 100,000 newspapers, innumerable radio stations, and billions of messages on social media ~ all competing for eyeballs ~ the attention span of the average viewer has been reduced to some few seconds. In this scenario, there is no chance of a subtle message going through; you have to be really loud and outrageous to be heard, which has resulted in the quality of public discourse touching its nadir.

The strident tone of shouting matches ~ masquerading as discussions on TV channels ~ with countless instances of verbal exchanges degenerating into walk-outs, and even physical fights, reinforces this conclusion. Social media is even worse; with no norms to follow, users have no hesitation in posting defamatory content, and at times, even the choicest abuses.

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Newspapers (not The Statesman), for long the advocates of balanced language, are going overboard with colourful headlines like Mr ABC slams/excoriates the statement of Mr DEF, where denies/refutes could have sufficed. A crime involving some famous person is manna for the media, which discusses it in sordid detail, very often with pronounced biases, and pronounces judgement even before the investigation is complete. The worst offenders, TV channels, feed on controversies; once a juicy scandal breaks out, anchors float the most outrageous theories, invite the most uncivil panellists, and forget everything about common decency.

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Such ‘media trials’ have come to the notice of Courts; according to the Andhra Pradesh High Court: “A ‘trial by media’ refers to the impact of television, newspapers, and social media on a person’s reputation by creating a widespread perception of guilt or innocence before, or after, a verdict in a Court of law… Media trials can prejudice the public, affect judicial functioning, and lead to wrongful portrayals of individuals, instigating hatred and violence against them.” The most famous victim of a media trial was actress Rhea Chakraborty, a one-time girlfriend of actor Sushant Singh Rajput (SSR), who died by suicide on 14 June 2020, at the young age of thirty-four. The cause of death was suicide, as determined by the coroner, with the initial post-mortem report indicating SSR died of asphyxia due to hanging.

The final post-mort em........

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