Channels have forgotten Orissa

Great writer Mark Twain was the one who said, “In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.”
But the question is, are the journalists seriously engaged in this social responsibility entrusted upon them by their very profession?
Take for example the Orissa episode. It has been nearly 15 days since the communal violence broke out in Kanadhmal and neighbouring districts of Orissa. And there are no signs of the violence coming to an end. Sporadic violence, burning of churches and houses is continuing unabated. According to a report, over 50,000 people, mostly tribals and dalits, are still hiding in the jungles, deeply scared to come out, fearing insecurity. The question is, even if they come out where will they go? Their houses are burnt to ashes. With houses their faith in the authorities, the government officials and the police is also shaken. So they seem to find nowhere to go.
It is indeed a mystery why the State is taking such a long time to address the situation head on. The Supreme Court had to order the State machinery to act, to be tough on those who disrupt law and order situation in the State and give protection to the minorities. Still the State seems to be going very slow, even as it is speaking ‘tough’.
Coming to the point, the Orissa violence seems to have suddenly disappeared from the media, especially the electronic media. Last four days the leading channels of the country had nothing to report on Orissa during prime time news bulletin. One got an impression that the situation in the State had come to normalcy. But sadly, that was not the case. News coming from ground zero said that the violence was still looming large and the situation was tense. But channels said nothing. This is a very sad development of modern mass media. Reporting is also about doing the follow up. No channel seemed to be serious in doing that. For a couple of days the channels did report from places most hit by violence. Then, of course, they were silent. One frantically searched the internet to see what was happening.
The newspapers did have some courtesy reporting to do every day, but buried in the inner pages, drawing less attention.
Indeed one becomes suspicious about the whole development in the media circles. Why is that even when things are not going right, they have nothing, or hardly anything, to say about such a grim reality as the threat to the secular fabric of our country? Is it because they are afraid? Or they do not care? Or is it because they think this is nothing unusual and that they have ‘better’ developments to cover?
At least the media have miserably failed in making the State accountable to the failure of law and order situation. The Navin Patnaik government is treading as though everything was normal. They are more concentrated on the coming elections and keen to exploit the volatile situation. In the real world, it is true that nothing is happening at the right place and at the right time. Sadly, though, the journalists and the media institutions are also scantly bothered to correct it. May be because, nothing right is happening for them these days.