The media sickens.

The Congress flag is flying at half-mast at the party headquarters because of the accidental death of the Andhra CM. So, the Star News anchor wants to know from his all-knowing reporter colleague, "Tell us, when does the flag fly half-mast?" I flipped, and flicked the remote before getting a sermon on the circumstances under which a flag should fly low.

Ajit Doval, formerly of IB, has said that media aggravated the Kandahar crisis. Had it not been for us, it could have been managed better.

Air India's voice, Jitendra Bhargava, has only one grouse with the world: the media. "If only they would listen," he complains to anyone who cares to listen.

The biggest villains of the 26/11 terror attack was not Pakistani terrorists but the media channels showing the entire combat operation live second by second and causing the needless deaths of several of our securitymen at the hand of the mercenaries clued in because of TV. No lessons learnt. CNN-IBN's Rajdeep Sardesai and some others began some exercise of self-control which has petered out in five seconds.

Today, the cameras were zooming in on the grieving faces of the Andhra CM's family and partymen shamelessly. They even showed one lady, struggling with her tears, asking them to vamoose. Of course, they didn't. The image was live, straight from the spot, and was replayed hundred times over through the day. How much more real can you get? What would you and I have done without these penetrative insights into a family's sense of loss?

As you see, the singular culprit is TV. The print media is far more sane and responsible even today. Notwithstanding its craving to compete with TV, it's a huge consolation that we have not reached there yet, not even with our dumbing down of news, bombardment of celeb circus and semi-porn.

Thank God.