News!

I was watching CNN’s Christiane Amanpour interviewing General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan as she was asking him about the situation in Afghanistan and about their strategies, troops withdrawal, strengths and weaknesses of their position and so forth. She then switched to President Gul of Turkey and asked about his stand on many issues regarding Turkey and what he is his country’s plan about many issues in the Middle East. Minutes later we move to news of Massacres in Syria. Since the Gulf war in 1990, at least that is as far as I remember, war scenes are on TV as they happen. The news these days strike me, as they no longer seem to be news. Strategies on war are openly discussed just like a football game, with pre game analysis, half time analysis, and post game analysis. In a football game, it is very difficult these days to predict strategies of a coach even if the most intelligent and experienced analyst tries to give you his insight. But in situations of war, aren’t these strategies supposed to be secret. Aren’t discussions among world leaders suppose to take place behind closed doors? Are we almost seeing everything that happens in the world live and on air like a football match? Let a lone the jumble of information we get via YouTube and other social media channels. We all know that to a certain extent, there is no 100% transparency in news channels and they all have their biases, then imagine the flood of info with true or twisted information coming to us almost instantaneously via these social network sites, and for some, people cant wait to get or send the next tweet. I recently received a video clip from a friend via whatsapp of an ad for Volkswagen in china, and the title on the message and the video read’s Japan’s latest technological advancement. Since the global financial crisis, I started watching business channels with thousands of theories, analysis and predictions and the more I watched these channels and programs the more I got confused to a point that I was not sure if we are in a crisis or not and if the reasons were really well defined as any sensible person would see them or were even twisted and spiced up more and more.  What we see on mainstream media seems not so different except it is wrapped and packaged in a nicer way.

Whatever we get via these channels, we seem to just want it now, whether we know what’s coming, we know what to expect, we know if it is true or false, we know if it is twisted, we know it is going to be a surprise. We came to a point that we just can not wait and want to know more about things happening around us even if it is not our business and even if we do very little to change the bad things in our world. So are we expecting to see and know everything “live”. It no longer becomes news as we live and see every moment of it.

One thing however I a really struggle to find an answer for as I am sipping on my coffee and watching the news, is how do those people who died in these massacres feel as their bodies are being displayed in front of millions of people, and the scenes of their dead bodies being replayed over and over. I just hope that our need for information “now” does not take away what is left of human dignity.