Today’s TV channels and Telescreen of George Orwell's '1984'

Today’s TV channels and Telescreen of George Orwell's '1984'

Anyone who has not read the novel ‘1984’ may mistake it to be about anti Sikh riot of Delhi. The novel ‘1984’ is in fact a visualization of totalitarian society, a dystopia. It is one of the most famous novels of dystopian genre.

This novel is so timeless that what is depicted in the novel holds true for different generations and societies. Though the novel portrays so many facets of an all powerful authoritarian regime, here I am trying to visualize the news studio vis-à-vis the dystopia of ‘1984’.

The news channels today act like omnipresent Telescreen of Oceania. The hate session which is conducted for two minutes on the Telescreen of Oceania goes on incessantly 24x7 today. The news channels convert any event which increases the TRP into breaking news and the real breaking news is ignored. The news rooms are converted into war rooms and media trial rooms. The nation wants answer, is repeatedly asked. The nation constitutes of every citizen of the country, but one wonders which nation the screaming news anchor refers to. Every dissenting person is labelled as traitor, anti national and terrorist. These channels have recklessly declared so many people as the traitors that they find it difficult to run war rooms without traitors. The real anti nationals have fun and laugh at them. The panellists on these channels contort faces, snarl and abuse each other when they reach hysteria during discussion. There comes a moment when the frenzied participants start jumping and thumping in the studio and the viewers stand on their toes in their drawing rooms. At the peak of these hate sessions, particularly a TV programme called VIEWSHOUR all the participants starts yelling to the capacity of their lungs and viewers starts chanting slogan. In this bedlam, one only sees On TV screen opening and shutting of mouth like a landed fish.

Like Oceania, the people are trolled, watched and stalked on social media and in real life. Journalism is no more in the hands of professionals but everyone with Smartphone is journalist and is fashionably called citizen journalists. The ability to keep the viewers hooked to TV screen and keep them on toe is the only benchmark of a successful journalist. All these have brought the standard of so called fourth pillar to nadir.

These war like situation and trial, fortunately remain in news room which disappear from viewers mind very soon as the mind gets ready for next episode and next trial. In fact the channels programme it in such a way that the impression are short lived in nature. The real trial still takes place in real court of justice without influence of media. Till the time parliament remains supreme, judicial writs are enforced and executive functions for the people; the ‘1984’ will remain a fiction.

The media, however, is still unleashed. The toxic induced by them is damaging the fabric of pluralism and much celebrated unity in diversity is at stake. The noble profession which was to educate people have gone astray. The mechanism is urgently needed to regulate them in the interest of real NATION.