Tremors in Chennai & Media Ethics

Today morning, there was a slight tremor in chennai. I din't realise it, since i slept only at 2.00 AM in the morning, after spending time in my friends's house for a get-together. The sea water entered into the coastal sides of chennai. Santhome, Merina, Tiruvottiriyur, Royapuram, Adyar, Besant Nagar, Neelankarai, Tirvanmiyur are affected. People are started to evacuate from thse places.

It is feared that there are more no. of fishermen community is at risk both in terms of human value & financial value. It's feared there are thosuands of people are homeless & possibility of severe loss of humans in this natural black christmas gift. I wonder for those Millonaires & "Kotteshwarans" who invested heavy money in building sea-side bungalows & other resorts. That's the sarcastic irony of this episode.

Regret to say, the government haven't taken a concrete step to stop the rumours spreading across. Everybody is spreading rumours across the state. The prime accused is Sun TV. Instead of pacifying the people, it actually increases the fear. This is sheer commercialising media journalism. It repeats the same clips from the morning to prove their point and criticising the government inability to handle the situation. I don't see there is honesty in these kinda of telecasting. What is more important for the people is to tell the truth, scientifical back ground and calm down the tensions raising out of this issue. But Sun News to me, is purely targeting to sensationalise & glamorise this natural dissater.

And the reporter, purposefully asking every fellow reporter from various districts about the Police & Government intervention and telecasts the people's hazy thoughts about how government establishements are at strike. A shot from the same channel, tells the clear story. There are thousands of men loitering the place and huge no. of vehicles on the beach road with a heavy traffice on the road. How can a government servant can do his duty. Somehow, we are more curious on how things are unfolding before us. It's being a nature of living in Chennai.

You can see the same mentality, if there is an accident or a shooting happening in this city. Everyone will crowd the place and do nothing productive. All are merely watching the scene in front of their eyes. We atleast, my personal experience with the people in Chennai, restates the fact that we somehow are more emotional than logical when crisis struck.

I do admit, in the initial stage, your mind may not work. But it becomes a collective mass psychology that we are more interested to learn the emotional part of the dissater than the logical next step to move forward.

I only look for Govt. taking faster actions & rescue as many people as they can. It proved all the more one time, that before Nature all our inventions go dumb