30 September,2009 07:34 AM IST | | Juliana Lazarus
The next journalist who tells me that sex sells is asking for a knock on his/her head.
Of course it does. It always will. But why are we journalists taking the easy way out? That's what bothers me.
Even newspapers in the conservative Middle East, with its strict censorship laws, are pushing the envelope.
Around five years ago, Hollywood actresses with plunging necklines and translucent negligee-like outfits would never be allowed to go to print that way. Designers would put Photoshop to good use lowering helms, lifting necklines, blotting out whatever assets could be seen through the sheen of satin and silk and a bold Roberto Cavalli creation could end up looking rather tame.
All that's changed now. Today, if editors there put a modestly-dressed Camilla Parker Bowles on the cover of a magazine, they may just end up getting an ugly memo.
Nobody (apart from Prince Charles, of course!) wants to have Sunday brunch with a crinkled Camilla is the argument most editors all over the world will dole out. True. But that doesn't mean that EVERYONE wants to know how Sheryn Chopra graduated from a flat-chested tomboy to a buxom bombshell. Or see the dumb Paris Hilton making an ass of herself in barely-there clothes.
Forget journalists, even the publishers of Oxford Dictionary of Quotations are not immune to Paris's charms.
She's just taken her place alongside the likes of Stephen Hawking, Barack Obama, Winston Churchill and Oscar Wilde with a quote that goes: "Dress cute wherever you go, life is too short to blend in." (Sheesh!)
But I digress. Coming back to the argument, at a recent panel discussion, journalists from across different media mainstream and tabloid newspapers as well as TV were at pains to tell all present that what you want is what you get. So, if Rakhi Sawant is such a celebrity these days, it's because you want to keep seeing her. And editors, poor sods, really have no choice.
On and on they went till one young girl a journalism student told them that their argument was a bit like what the drug mafia peddles: That if there's a market for drugs and if people want it, why not sell it?
The audience cheered and clapped as the editors at least had the grace to turn a lovely, deep shade of crimson.
The big problem in journalism today is not just creativity but also sloth. It's so easy to dial a source and churn out a story. Easy to get 'shocking' news about someone's sexual orientation, their prowess in bed, their romps (after all, they do have to depend on publicity all kinds). But old-fashioned journalism that requires days, sometimes even months, of painstaking groundwork is as good as dead. That's because reporters know that there are two ways to do a story and both will earn them the same.
As a result, freedom of expression that the media in India is blessed with is frittered away to satisfy readers' voyeuristic pleasures. And what can editors do? Sex is easy, you see, and it sells.
