Dia’s Press-ing problem

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Posted: 18 years ago

Dia's Press-ing problem

< content=07/15/2007 name=date>

Dia Mirza seems to be taking her journalist's role in Shootout… rather seriously. She indulged in some consummate media-bashing at the orientation programme of media students at KC College yesterday

Yesterday media students at KC College got a pleasant surprise. Actress Dia Mirza was there for the orientation programme of Bachelors in Mass Media freshers. Interestingly, she ended up doing plenty of media-bashing in the short time that she was there.

Dia Mirza plays a journalist in Shootout at Lokhandwala

Dia launched into her lecture by saying she gets so disturbed on opening the newspapers every morning, that she crumples them and throws them away. Her 20-minute long lecture was marked by the central theme of the Bipasha-Ronaldo kiss controversy. She kept repeating that she thought the issue was merely blown up by the media and actually deserved no attention. She returned to this subject time and again, each time pointing out that the budding journalists (her audience) should avoid just such reporting.

The budding journalists, in turn, had plenty of questions for Dia. For instance, a student, after hearing her media-bashing, got up to ask her, in that case why did actresses like her employ publicists to get themselves covered in the media.

Tough question, huh? Dia cleverly ignored the question and changed the topic.

Later, she berated today's journalists for not expressing any opinions in their articles. (She added for good measure that when she herself used to write articles, she always expressed an opinion in her pieces.) Up shot a student to say that in journalism classes, it's taught that one must simply record facts and not editorialise. To this, Dia retorted, "Well, it's important to have your own mind."

The same student also asked her why stars use the media again, and appear on shows like Koffee with Karan, to clear their names in any controversy they may have been involved in. Dia shot back, "Surely you're not talking about me?" (No, Ms Mirza hasn't had coffee with KJo yet.)

It was obvious that Dia enjoyed this chance to talk undisturbed, to an audience, for she gave many questions the short shrift and continued airing her views unabated.

A TV channel was there to record the lecture. A student mentioned that this orientation programme wouldn't be covered, had it not been for Dia Mirza's presence. Ironic, since the theme of the talk was about media sensationalism. How much role did actors have to play in this? So, what did Dia have to say to that? Nothing, apparently. She only smiled modestly.