Headlines Today

My niece was doing her summer holidays homework. One of the projects assigned to her were, to write everyday Headlines from at least two newspapers for 15 days.:coffee

She just passed 1st standard and promoted to 2nd class. Just a little girl of 6 years. The note book was very colorful and each page of different hue as the news of everyday.
There were 20 pages in the book and well bound.

I saw her notebook after one week . The headlines surprised me. Everyday for the total one week it was “ a tainted Governor”, IPL, Ruchika’s case, political scams, Medical council corruption, Bhopal gas tragedy. It seems that today’s headlines are more of mud slinging, accusations, blame game and what not in every part of the society-be it politics, Education, National issues, Security issues or People related issues.:bonk

She was asking me who these people were and what were their achievements to come in headlines? She was told my her teacher in school that, Headlines or main page of the new paper is usually occupied by very prominent, important news.
But to her surprise everyday see reads the same words like Scam, agitation, terror, murder, homicide, disaster. Every page of her book looks RED with such news. Only one tainted color.
But unfortunately the little one could not comprehend that today’s headlines in the print media are depicting totally contradictory news than mentioned by her teacher.She hardly understands these words but now she knows that they are all derogatory.. Sh said to me “ Everyday news has one of these words for sure, but I know that these words are bad. So headlines means only bad words?”. This question tickled me. Poor soul she cannot know that people who do these deeds are not as mature as her.
No where achievements are forming the the headlines.
If no good is projected in the headlines itself , what will our future generation follow. Their mind is also tuned to listening, seeing, hearing only news of Scams, Violence, Corruption, Agitations, Acid Attacks and Scary stories which are magnified and depicted- young minds get influenced .
They cannot comprehend the meaning of these headlines at their age,:idontgetit: but superficially these words will lodge in their brains, as they are rolling on the newspapers very frequently.
Its time we look at what are we highlighting as headlines and if they really deserve to be headline. Shouting high from the roof top will not bring the faulty people to book but constructive gathering of evidence and proper legal procedures will bring the culprits to book.

As long as we enjoy reading such stories of demeaning ones, everyday in the first hours, we are in fact polluting our minds and passively poisoning the young minds exposing them to unwanted details .
Its time every parent, news reporters, print and electronic media reframe their prioritization and bring in positive feeling among the readers but simultaneously warn the society of the evils and highlight theaction taken on such wrongdoers.

 

Shanthi,

Yes, probably they should give sports or cultural achievements pages for writing such assignments.
Kids at least will feel inspired and elated reading Sachin, Saina Nehwal and Viswanathan Anand.

Even I have stopped watching TV and reading every detail of newspaper. As Amitabh Bachchan commented" I read Sports page first, as they are full of achievements, hardwork ".
May be many will join us soon if content edition is not properly done and right emphasis is put on relevant topics.

Seetha