I don't trust news anymore

As a kid, I had learnt that news stood for North-East-West-South. I believed it then. I am no longer sure it is true anymore.

Going by the acronym it would represent the directions from which share-worthy information would be disseminated by those who knew their news, making the news credible. It is sadly no longer the case. Or at least I am convinced so.

Take the case of Arvind Kejriwal. He seems to be unleashing at least one new scam or something of the size and shape and pointing new fingers everyday. This seems far more programmed than television channels themselves! How much of it is believable? Speaking for myself, I choose to believe none of it. I am realist, not so much of an idealist.

Every one has the news even as it breaks. And somehow everyone on Twitter is talking about it within seconds of each other. No sooner has the timeline been flooded by so many reworded versions in just 140 characters, it has already begun its spillover on Facebook, YouTube and websites. And rest, as they say, is history.. or becomes one! Says so much about the ingenuity of our communication skills!

It is no wonder then that recently a lot of celebrities have been RIPed off virtually. Sting operations rule the roost. Half stories start doing the rounds even before the whole story can get itself out of the bag. You believe what you see but you don't think anymore. Or don't need to? Or do we? And what, who and why do you believe anymore?

Our Professor Mohan Sinha taught us the 5W & 1H of journalism. The speed at which news does the round barely leaves the time to verify the what, who, where, when, why or how anymore. So, does that mean 5W&1H is now old school news? Or are we getting ahead of ourselves with respect to news being news itself?

Truth be told: these are the times of social news and citizen journalism. News now updates even before it actually happens! To me the paradigm of news itself has changed. It is no longer the truthful looking glass from which one could look at the world. It now always needs to be treated with a healthy dose of salt and sensibility.

Do you still trust what you hear anymore?

Digital expressions...

The world will never cease to amaze me.

Just when you think you have seen it all, done it all and thus, know it all, it knocks you down once again. You can never say you know it all.

Blame Darwin.

Evolution. Humans through times have evolved from bring primates to sapiens to homo sapiens and now homo sapiens sapiens (This is the last time I looked it up!). Stopping is not our genes. Evolving is. Continually learning, growing, getting better, shedding the useless is us. Faster. Stronger. Better.

Skipping a few connections now, lets talk about the growth user generated content on social networking sites. Most social networking sites work purely based on content that is user generated. Imagine a Facebook or Twitter without any friends or followers. Blank!

So, while doing what I usually do, I came across another trending topic on Twitter. 

#ToMyFutureKids

On click has suddenly opened up Pandora's box.

To join trending twitter topics with your own thoughts is what lots of us do. And so it happened this time around. Except for what I was reading surprises me no end. Or does it?

When I saw the link trending, the first thought to hit me was to respond with something about a clean green environment for my kids. However, I first decide to read what everyone is talking about. And that is what is now an itch. It will need more scratching.

The responses on the trending topic were far from that. The responses, to me, were a psychological window to our world. To me it really reflected who and what we have become as a society. Most the responses, at best, were a ghastly reflection of their own childhood. And unhappy at that. It should no longer be a surprise that most tweets talked about what exactly they would not put their children through. And the list includes everything from allowing concert tickets to never having to not know who your father is.

The fact is it is natural for us to pay most attention to whatever hurts the most, even though the rest might be still as beautiful and unique. I remember reading the 90-10 rule which says we do 90% of the things to avoid 10% of the pain. And this is what really stood out for me today.

Our society today has so much hurt huddled up inside us that it is unreal to happily bear the pain. We take refuge in social networks where people cannot really see where we can hurt. After all, when you do tweet even on a trending topic, who really notices, but it does get out of you! The more people we know, the faster the timeline shifts. What is one lost tweet among trending topics that seem to change faster than our thoughts?

We need to express, even if no one is listening, even if it does not fix anything. We don't want hurt anymore. Instead of fixing what needs to be fixed, we seek new addresses to be happy. If Facebook bores us, there is a Twitter. When that gets too drab/textual, there is Pinterest and Instagram. If images get boring, there is always YouTube. And so on and so forth.

We are open to express ourselves more freely than our ancestors ever did, yet we seem to be hiding under new layers than imagined. And I bet I am just scratching at the surface here.

Do you agree to disagree?