Sanjaya typifies the influence of Indians or people of Indian descent in America! What can I say – there have been people who can sing better than him who are already out of the show and the Sanjaya juggernaut continues unabated!
Whether this is because of Howard Stein or because of the influence of the Indian American community can be debated! We Indians tend to live within a community – whether that is dominated by language, caste or religion, when in India and when abroad as Indians – pure and simple. It goes on to show that Indians are really well connected never mind Howard Steins mission of sabotaging the American Idol show. The premise of the show is that people vote for who they perceive as the best – if that is the case, whether Simon Howell likes it or not, Sanjaya will be in, until voters are sick of him and/or his singing!
This has been so much fun – unlike a similar reality show in the UK, Celebrity Big Brother, which got derailed because of racial undertones! As far as I can see there are no racial undertones, but because voters are unwilling to vote Sanjaya off the show, he continues to thrive!
Live on and rock on Sanjaya!
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
American Media: Trivializing News and too internally focussed?
Is the American media trivializing news and are they too internally focused?
ON late Sunday night, India time, there was a major terrorist attack on an Indian train (connecting India and Pakistan) killing 66 people and injuring many others. One of American biggest and highly popular news website carried the news item as a byline in its “Latest News” section while the main story was dealing with how 4 people and a pet were rescued after they got stuck in a snow storm!
If the same attack happened on American soil or was targeted at American interests anywhere in the world, God forbid – we have too much bloodshed already, even if the casualties were far smaller, it would have made headlines!
Most American news channels, newspapers and websites are so internally focused that it seems that the news is getting trivialized!
The biggest news, recently in American media – Britney Spears has shaved her head! Give it a break folks – Leave her alone – It might do her a world of good!
All news organizations seem to be focused on making profits and news such as this, while useless and not giving any useful information sells!
This also seems to be a malaise affecting the American education system! The system is also so internally focused that most students at school do not even study various about countries, their cultures. Most Indians study the gamut of world civilizations, Indus Valley, Egyptian, Chinese etc. to the American civil war, American and the French Revolutions, the rise and fall of communism, World Wars etc.
Shouldn’t the media have the responsibility to teach people about various countries and cultures? The media mainly focuses on the city where it is in, the state, the US and countries where US has huge interests (especially Middle East, Israel) or where the Americans have or had their hands in a conflict (Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Vietnam).
IN the era of the internet blurring the borders across each country to make the world a global village, ignorance is certainly not bliss!
ON late Sunday night, India time, there was a major terrorist attack on an Indian train (connecting India and Pakistan) killing 66 people and injuring many others. One of American biggest and highly popular news website carried the news item as a byline in its “Latest News” section while the main story was dealing with how 4 people and a pet were rescued after they got stuck in a snow storm!
If the same attack happened on American soil or was targeted at American interests anywhere in the world, God forbid – we have too much bloodshed already, even if the casualties were far smaller, it would have made headlines!
Most American news channels, newspapers and websites are so internally focused that it seems that the news is getting trivialized!
The biggest news, recently in American media – Britney Spears has shaved her head! Give it a break folks – Leave her alone – It might do her a world of good!
All news organizations seem to be focused on making profits and news such as this, while useless and not giving any useful information sells!
This also seems to be a malaise affecting the American education system! The system is also so internally focused that most students at school do not even study various about countries, their cultures. Most Indians study the gamut of world civilizations, Indus Valley, Egyptian, Chinese etc. to the American civil war, American and the French Revolutions, the rise and fall of communism, World Wars etc.
Shouldn’t the media have the responsibility to teach people about various countries and cultures? The media mainly focuses on the city where it is in, the state, the US and countries where US has huge interests (especially Middle East, Israel) or where the Americans have or had their hands in a conflict (Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Vietnam).
IN the era of the internet blurring the borders across each country to make the world a global village, ignorance is certainly not bliss!
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