The arrogance of most media is best exemplified by this article in The Hindu today. T.M.Krishna ( a Carnatic classical musician) writes to N.Ram, the Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu disagreeing with him on his analysis of how musicians percieve criticism. T.M.Krishna also offers to show examples of the shoddy work of the "critics" published in The Hindu. He also goes on to say, that though the musicians have to be more tolerant towards criticism, the critics themselves have to do better homework. For any normal reader, that letter sounds very dignified. And while accepting flaws amongst his community, he points to flaws of those "critics".
Now, look at N.Ram's response. "But evaluating music criticism is not his strong suit — judging from the condescending tone of this polemical response and his sweeping dismissal of the competence of our music critics". N.Ram goes on to compare TMK to a successful test cricketer lamenting on cricket writers. If a successful test cricketer does not speak on cricket, who will??
Read on further. N.Ram goes about dismissing TMK's concerns and then proudly justifies his argument citing TMK's objections! Never has N.Ram offered to listen to specific objections of TMK.
A simple question. N.Ram can question the music fraternity as a whole. He can call it thin skinned etc. But TMK cannot question the rationale behind the writings of some "critics"?
Who exactly is being intolerant of criticism here? Who is being thin-skinned amongst the two? Like N.Ram said, I will leave it "for readers to judge" :D
PS: I have never read any music review. What bothers me is N.Ram's intolerance towards any strong dissenting opinion and his personal attack on a dignified critic.
0 comments:
Post a Comment