Media Needs To Think Beyond Cricket

After politics and bollywood, sports is the next popular area of interest for the people of India. However, in Indian context, when we say ‘Sports’ it is mostly restricted to ‘Cricket’. As a result cricket has reached to a level where cricketers are considered not less than God.

It’s amazing that Indian cricket is getting the backing of the media as well as of the people. But when will the other sports grow? Cricket gets more than 75 percent of the total sports coverage by the media, especially electronic media. Cricket, definitely, is not to be blamed for that, but it is the media itself. The simple reason being that they have the freedom to pick the stories they wish to cover. But with this freedom, is the media acting responsible in doing justice to all sports disciplines? And the answer is pretty much visible through the newspapers and television news channels.

There have been instances when the Indian media has neglected major stories of other sports disciplines to make way for ordinary cricket stories that could be published the next day. During the time of former Indian Hockey team captain Dilip Tirkey’s retirement in May 2010, a couple of newspapers carried not more than a 50 to 60-word report while many just did not publish anything about the great sportsman. Tirkey is considered as one among the finest captain’s of the Indian hockey team and certainly, his retirement makes big news. Surprisingly, the media did not consider it to be so. Imagine if it was Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s retirement. How would the media act in this case? There was another case when chess maestro Viswanathan Anand regained the World Chess Championship last year. In Mangalore, only one English daily carried the news, that too as a small story to fill up the space. Recently India lost all their group matches in the Asia Cup 2011 football tournament. It was after more than 20 years that India had qualified for the mega tournament. Although India lost all of their group matches to Australia, Bahrain and South Korea, critiques maintain that the overall performance of India has been good considering their actual status in world football and the high class opponents they faced. And we very well know how the media made a mockery of the Indian team after their successive defeats. How can we expect the team to perform better if it has never been given the right amount of support and motivation?

If this is the attitude of the media towards sports, other than cricket, how could one expect good results from the low priority sports. India is lagging way behind in football. In Hockey too, the country has lost a lot of ground. But that does not mean we don’t have the potential. The media needs to think beyond TRPs and act in a way that is conducive for all sporting disciplines. The media not only has the power to influence but also encourage and boost the morale of sportspersons through a few words of appreciation.

Edited by Staff Editor
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