Dyslexic Media: What does Praful Patel want?

I have, like many others, a serious love-hate relationship with the Indian media. As a former journalist I feel their pain, but sometimes you just can't take the idiocy that is produced out of the 24-hour news cycle. Therefore, Dreams of a Typewriter (DoT) is introducing a new feature called Dyslexic Media that will point out some of the stupidest stunts that media pulls on a regular basis.

This is a minor issue, but I want to point it out just to show how much media is capable of hyping most innocent events. The Asian Age carried a report today, Aviation Minister wants to shift ministry? Now, always be on guard when the headline has a "?" at its end. It means that the journalist is just covering his ass from the random guess that he is going to make in the story. The report continued:  

'... [the] civil aviation minister Praful Patel on Wednesday said that “maybe”, it was time for him to “move on” from the civil aviation ministry. Soon after, however, the minister told this newspaper he had made the comment “in jest”.'

The report goes on to tell you Patel's career and speculates on why he might be unhappy with his job.

 

This is what really went on. I was in the damn conference where Patel was giving the speech and this is what he said, "I have come to this annual conference for the past four years. That tells you I have been here way too long... May be it is time to move on." It was a joke! It was a joke about how he has been attending the same conference about Air Traffic Controllers for the last four years. How can somebody produce a three-hundred word story from this not-even-funny small joke is beyond me.

 

Ironic part about the whole affair is that Patel's speech was about irresponsible media making too much of a fuss about tiny  issues and sometimes outrightly lying. How did the reporter miss that part?

 

Image: Indian Praful Patel