Media is supposed to be a source of information, a trustable source of information at that, for the public. However, media in the current generation has become all about sensationalization, rather than about reporting facts.
Almost every Telugu media channel has propagated for the last one day that the state of Telangana will enter total lockdown after the 30th of this month. Channels have been propagating that imposing a lockdown would be the first decision that Chief Minister KCR would be taking during his cabinet meeting.
Following this aggressive propaganda from all TV channels, the public started to panic, and are flocking to shops and markets to stock up on daily necessities. As a result, there are huge crowd gatherings going on all around the state.
This propaganda by the media has also inherently made the people relentlessly question the concerned authorities about a possible lockdown in the state. The concerned officials finally responded to these endless questions, saying that the prospect of introducing a lockdown hasn’t even come up in any of the talks that the government has been having, and clearly stated that the stories circulating on the media are purely false.
All media channels immediately stopped telecasting about lockdown after this official statement, but the damage has already been done with their baseless reporting. It is high time that media channels begin instilling confidence in people, and not worsen the situation.