Today, Bangalore's newspapers had reported the news about a 'techie' killing his wife and committing suicide as the prime news on the first page. I could not understand why all newspapers thought this was the most important news of the day. FM radio stations, not to be left behind, were asking the listeners to send their opinion about the incidence through an SMS to them.
Don't get me wrong. I definitely feel sorry for the young couple and wish their lives had not ended tragically this way. However, this is not the first time entire families have ended their lives in such a tragic way in this city. If you sift through the newspapers, you could find at least one incidence in a month where a mother poisons her children and ends her life, a farmer, not being able to bare the burden of loans, kills himself and so on. Such news gets reported somewhere deep in the internal sheets, hard to find even if you are looking for. However, this incidence gained so much of importance only because the person involved is a 'techie'. (a unique word coined by Indian media which could mean anything from a people manager in a software company to a call center executive in a BPO company.) My thoughts when I saw this were, is the life of a techie more valuable than that of, say, a Government employee? If not, do the newspapers do this only because the readers are more interested in reading about the life of a techie than that of a more humble person? Or is it because.... I don't know...
After all, the families of the deceased would hate nothing more than media glare on the private lives of their
dear ones after this tragedy. I hope the media leaves them alone.
I think this is a fallout of 24x7 news channels -- any news is good news for them. And, newspapers, not to be left behind, have to give column space for such non-front-page stuff.
ReplyDeleteAlso, most news channels were only showing Infy campus when relaying the story... what a tragedy! What has the place of work of the victim/perpetrator have to do with the crime itself?