The story of journalism and long named awards

"Common Minimum Program of the United Progressive Alliance Government is out. It is predominantly left handed."
"Australia won the second one day international cricket match against Zimbabwe by a huge margin. Zimbabweans hardly have any team"
"After a crash and the mania of the manic Monday, Indian stock markets have stabilized"
"Narendra Modi is face to face with the RSS, facing dissent in his own bastion"

Sounds like the Rediff homepage, doesn't it? Or even the Times Of India headlines if you include some more masala information about the latest movies on the circuit. The strange part, nonetheless, is that the lines above are neither of these and do not belong to any other place that you would think they normally should, if they are behaving like the just born and not like the one who has had the first hand experience of the world for more than a day and has already started appreciating the charms of the nurse/ward boy. These are the brain children (is there any such word?) of some of the bloggers that I have come across during my voyage through the net. During this most fortunate part of my journey called life, I have had the rare fortune of reading the same news over and over again that I had already read in the morning, and not just read but also discussed (with the hapless neighbor) and analyzed them before removing the rein off my roving mouse and pointing it to the imaginary world of Blogs, Inc.

I know that I must be wrong somewhere because however hard that I try, I do not get the logic of repeating the stuff that you read in the morning, verbatim on your private (or public, as in the case of blogs) journal. The point is that if you have a view, a stand on the issue and you are putting it across (in the hope that it will fetch you one of those long named awards (a la Raman Maggi Sauce somebody), then I perfectly understand that and actually empathize with you over the issue. I have had similar desires myself (the beard of RavindraNath looks cool, doesn't it?) and will hardly like to prevent anyone from indulging in such novel (read nobel) exercise.

But why, oh why dear Lord, do people shred away even the last shroud of decency and become hell bent on beating Mamta Kulkarni in the race? Plagiarize, please do. The respectable bloggers, however, should take the other Mamta as the example instead. The firebrand from Kolkata (the brand of whose fire has lost some equity after the recent elections) is actually a good case in point. She digs dirt and digs deep but when she actually comes out of the hole, I am sure that she adds her own bucketful of sand to the dirt. I know that the analogy is a bit difficult to comprehend but it has been designed considering the people who are going to win the Raman Maggie Sauce award some day. So, even if you don't understand my post today, blame it on the capitalists who have started such joint ventures between Raman of the Diamond Comics fame (who is the creation of Pran, who has links with the underworld, because his namesake is from the film industry) and Maggi sauce (Maggi hot and sweet, its different)

The point (undecided on whether it wants to tend towards the bloggers' circle or ride along my line) is that I personally feel that if a person maintains a journal for the sake of journalism (what else can a journal be used for, the Raman Maggie Sauce non-awardees may ask), he or she can go ahead with rephrasing and repeating headlines and even copying them verbatim shamelessly (and in the process, pipping Mamta, of the Kulkarni and not the fire brand, to the post).

If at all I become the Prime Minister of India some day (reminds me of the 'If I become the Prime Minsiter' essay that I wrote in 4th grade to impress the beautiful English teacher), I will make it mandatory for all bloggers to declare their journalistic tendencies on a scale of 10. All those with a score above 7 will be stopped (with immediate effect, that is within the next 5 to 10 years) from posting any new headlines (old headlines might be allowed as a part of compromise with the left) verbatim from any newspaper, web site or secret and confidential sources. People...oops...bloggers with a score between 3 and 7 will have the freedom to reproduce, without the risk of violating any IPRs, any and every thing that they want from any and every place. All those who scored less than or equal to 3 because they are still wondering how I could be dirty enough to make passes at my teacher in 4th grade, will be executed...hanged till death.