Blog and The Traditional News Medias

Hi all
since past few days i was refelecting on something . something which at the first glance looks very common place and mundane but as i gave it a serious analysis it was something that shocked me . it was something about internet and the way we access news and form opinion .
for some of you it might be very very simplistic but it was something of a discovery for me so iwould like to share it with you.

The fact that internet has revolutionized the world is an old story , the fact that it has redefined the face of business world and changed the rule of game too doesn’t gives a kick. These are big games but how does it effect some thing more fundamental Our WorldView our opinion . Inspite of Internet and all the source of info some COWBOY from texas was able to launch a war on some gulf nation for some nonexistent W.M.D and get away with it and more tragic is the fact that people and a large number of them believe that cowboy was not fighting for oil. Truth seems to be different from NEWS.

we were conditioned to think what we were told to think, by our teachers, By our parents ,by our church and in modern days by news channels ,No matter what we love to believe , no matter which news paper or news channel we subscribe to our knowledge of world was second hand we always learned the story not as what it happened but as what it appeared to the journalist . Journalists were in turn told by their bosses to see what was favorable to their political/corporate/ terrorist godfathers. We never crosschecked we never had a mean to cross check. It is an old axiom that people only question those things which are within there reach nobody wants to go an extra mile in search of truth . J.B.Shaw once said “If a news paper says there is a baby in Texas who has a head of an pig and and body of an human people will believe it but put an sign board in your neighborhood park with “WET PAINT” written over it and people will go to it and check whether it is really wet or not . field of vision seems to be controlling extent of enquiry “??”

The grip of media is so tight and so invisible on our mind and our thinking that sometime we live in a sort of matrix . I wonder this is what orwell meant when he was writing 1984 is the media and its nexus is some sort of BIG BROTHER.

You will be surprised to know that how things looks different once you get it from two different sources (Two Different channels or newspapers) I found myself fortunate to spend my formative years in Sriganganagar a small city near India –Pakistan long before cable television we enjoyed the luxury of two channel Our very own doordarshan and PTV of Pakistan . Initially I used to be amused by listening the two entirely different interpretations of same events in these channel some thing as trivial as a cricket commentary give two different story depending which side of the crowd you want to please or FOOL. This becomes more painful when you see a news report on Kashmir, two channel supporting two views both backed by facts and live transmission .you don’t know what to believe and what not to believe .

But some thing is fundamentally flawed here aren’t we supposed to hear what happened there at the place of event and decide what to think on our own and decide what to back or what to oppose by best of our OWN knowledge but subconsciously we are outsourcing this to media . Every Sunday morning I pickup my newspaper and read what is “swaminomics’s “ stand on latest economic issue and for past 2 year, more often than not it was used to be my stand. I outsourced my opinion. I outsourced my judgment I know people like me are plenty and we are fool enough to consider our self smarter than the villager who believe in something just because that is what told to him by XYZ. But hey stop and think for a while is there any basic different in him and us? Answer is YES his ignorance was forced our ignorance is chosen. we asked for it .
News channel and media are there to report the news not create or explain the news.

That brings us to the Question of how to search for the real story not the modified cooked up version oneway of doing it is to check up internet based news blogs its basically very easy to read and often a first hand account of people who were there at the time of any event . even though these blogs might be a bit raw and unstructured but they are refreshingly honest and candid . people on blog are not bound by any protocols or something to stop them from speaking there mind . one these platform only you can listen to other sides of story and understand other persons view .


when you are exposed to Varity of view on some topic and nobody is there to tell you what to think than only you think and form an opinion and that is your opinion .

for example earlier I used to believe that world is unnecessarily bad for Israel ,that they face hostility of world without doing anything to deserve it . I believed it because I read it in novels, watched it in movies and other source of knowledge were are sympathetic toward Israel and a bit hostile toward muslim people fighting them . but through blogs only I came to know that Israel has also commited it’s share of atrocities on muslims and it has no legal or historical claim on the land of Palestine and Gaza strip

now my views are more fact based and I have a less radical stand on this issue . but this is not important what is important is the fact that the view is my own .

so go on read blogs discover new facts and when you find something interesting don’t forget to tell me .specially if it is about some new tricks to get date or soem new way to do sex
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We will talk about the impact of internet on commerce in next posting c u than