The media, in the form of paper or television, try to manipulate the data that is only accessible to them and publish them elaborately in a way that would make their company more popular. This is a common strategy used by all the channels and newspapers worldwide, but it is usually taken a step forward in India, particularly in regional channels. They try to cook up facts supporting their story or emphasize on irrelevant data of that event. This was particularly demonstrated in the state called Tamil Nadu in South India, when the then Chief Minister Karunanidhi was arrested from his residence in the wee hours of morning convicted of making alleged losses in the State's infrastructure projects. Let me just paint an abstract picture of the political scene and influence in Tamil Nadu. It is usually either run by Karunanidhi's party or by Jayalalitha's party. The only regional news channels in the state are Sun News (owned by Karunanidhi) and Jaya News (owned by Jayalalitha). Karunanidhi was arrested in the year 2001, five years after Jayalalitha was arrested and released on bail for a similar conviction.
The common man in Tamil Nadu is restrictively allowed to view either the Sun News channel or the Jaya News channel. The Suns News, obviously, displayed this event as to be very insulting and extremely criticized this act. The Jaya News pretended to be very supportive of this move but at the same time, also criticized the steps taken during the process of the arrest. Apparently, when Jayalalitha was arrested, in 1996, it was a very aggressive one where they had forced her into the back of a police truck. But, for Karunanidhi, the arrest was comparatively milder as he was not forcibly woken up at night, and was escorted into an Ambassador (the Lincoln automobile of India) with minimum force. Jaya News highlighted this aspect of the event to a very high extent, which surely seemed unnecessary, and discarded the core concern of the issue and blamed the Government for displaying partiality during the two arrests. The television viewer would wind up with mixed opinions or a biased opinion depending on which channel is more influential on him. This is definitely an unethical behavior of the media, who exploit the viewer with their unquestionable power to lure them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karunanidhi_midnight_arrest
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-3204955.html
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