There are those too who have a case against the Media

The other day I came across an angry reader of mine who asked me quite bitterly.
“You don’t hesitate to condemn the political leadership of the country for rampant corruption, for disastrous misgovernance and for lack of moral and national character. What about the Media Czars and the judgmental anchorpersons who are using their obscene and unprecedented power to enhance their fiscal worth? Aren’t they too ‘fit’ cases for cross-examination, detailed probe and deserved accountability?”
I was taken aback by the ‘bite’ lurking in his long question.
“Can you please elaborate your question? Which Media Czars and judgmental anchorpersons you are referring to?”
I asked him after a while.
“I know, you know,” he replied.” You have been in this business for decades. If you don’t know, who else can? Even I happen to know that anchorpersons are allowing themselves to be vulnerably to temptations from those who can pay. There are analysts who are vagabonds and moral pygmies of the first order and they deliver lectures on morality and patriotism. Shouldn’t they be exposed? Shouldn’t the real faces of those anchorpersons be shown to the people who have marketed their power with such efficiency and expertise that within a few years their financial worth has multiplied manifold?”
“You may have a point my dear,” I told him. “But we should judge people by what they ‘do’ and not by what they ‘are’. Moreover the people are the best judges. You can cheat them only for a limited time. Then they will start looking into your contradictions, and start having doubts about your credibility.”
“I have been your reader for more than four and a half decades,” this angry reader of mine said. “I read your Jhoot Ka Peghambar also. It was sensational. And true. But you later disowned it. Of course you had some convincing reasons to disown some of the anger that had gone into the writing of that book. But most of what you wrote was based on facts. In my view your best writings came in the years when as Mussawar’s Chief Editor, you took on the lords of the film industry. You have to revive that spirit again. Let Mussawar take a new birth. And you should have the Media as your new subject.”
I sighed, looked at him and said: ” I wish I could. But I am 73 now, not 37.”