Cynic's Society - I

Cartoons are one of the most read and liked in our dailies. Nowadays, you can't get a chance to read a daily without a cartoon in it. Most of it appears on front page, with few exception on inside back page. Pick a national daily and see its front page for cartoon for a week. Study the sketch and few words. Majority of it are filled with deep, dark satire and sarcasm. There is no doubt, cartoon speaks the language of satire and sarcasm.

Darker it is, more successful the cartoonist is. The question is why people are so much in love with cartoons ?  One simple answer could be, it's sketch are simple and lines are humorous,  which has power to tickle most people's funny bones. No one needs to be highly educated to get its easy meaning. There is no doubt, most of the cartoonists are also a political journalists. No wonder, they give you what is going on in our political circle. It's just that they report with their simple sketches using very few words, instead of long elaborated news. I am amazed how the public like those satire and sarcasm targeted at our politicians or corrupt people in power positions. Darker the satire, better they are liked and appreciated by the mass.

Have you paid attention to the fact, that all the cartoonist focus on our daily problems ? The big question is have you ever seen a single problem being solved with the use of satire and sarcasm ? The answer is, No. This is what makes me think harder, then why do they satire  ? Sarcasm is also not the diplomatic way to sort out a problem that persist in our society. But, it's not just the cartoons that speaks the language of satire and sarcasm. Now a days, I keep reading a magazine Samhita [ethics] which is the trimester publication from Press council. This magazine focus on ethics in journalism reminding them responsibility and accountability. Even here, the language used by; is so unsuitable for wise and self respecting readers.

The truth is, most of the journalists use the kind of language that can be termed very substandard for national daily, yet there is no control on such language.  I see such language has been used by not just senior but fresh journalists, with such ease that they don't even seem to feel sorry for using in their writings. And, when I read  seniors journalists articles, then; I get where the new journalists learned. It's the same case in social networking site also. Many times, it seems, they take pride using substandard language to vent frustrations for our politicians and people in power. It makes me wonder, are not journalists trained to pour anger in decent language ? They are bad when it comes to pouring anger, venting frustrations, ranting and nagging. Must they use filthy and derogatory language, when they report negative news about politicians ? Such use of degrading language in our news means, how much respect they show to their readers. That maybe is the reason the language we see on our social sites are even worse than what we see in our media. It seems that our journalists don't care much, about the kind of language they use in men dominated newsrooms. One of the easy way to make our media men to use decent language is, to fill the newsroom with more women. So that they will be careful who are around and why they needs to be careful in their writing and who will be reading it.

Does news means negative reporting only ? We all know it, journalism is not all about putting spotlight on the dark side of society only. However, it seems, newsroom are the place; where all the cynics gather up to vent frustrations, express bitterness, anger, ranting, nagging, be mad at politicians or those who are in power positions, mock the system. They seem to be feeling so helpless [personally] all the time; not knowing how to find a solution to this kind of mess that is going on in our society. No wonder, looking at our news, it seems like Nepal is a heaven for cynics. And cynicism knows no boundary in our reporting.

Cynic's Society - II will be on next Sunday's post

Note : 1. the cartoons has been used with the consent of cartoonist except for the one by Senior cartoonist Vastsayan, who could not be contacted.

2. This article has already been published in Samhita Magazine [2015] which is published by Press Council Nepal on trimester basis.