One question that keeps on arising in my mind is what kind of communication skills my kids are learning from the electronic media, mainly TV. Making fun of someone’s looks, body shape or mimicking a transgender is the dominant feature of comedy shows aired on all channels. A team of comedians, guests and the host, passes humiliating remarks, which are symptomatic of their aesthetically poor comedy. It either leaves a bad taste in the mouth or deteriorates the aesthetics of audience. In the so-called comedy shows, the fine line between making fun and having fun is crossed continuously. The humiliation starts in the name of comedy. After so-called media development, we still find gender and caste based satire to be the easiest way to entertainment. The medium that is considered to have a magic bullet effect on audience is churning out below the belt jokes, sensational breaking news, repetition of commercial idea and making non-issues the real issues. Media students must know the Media Dependency Theory. Ball Rokeach and De-Fleur described how audience depends on media information to meet needs and reach goals. The degree of dependency is influenced by centrality of information functions. When social change and conflicts are high; established institutions, beliefs and practices are challenged. People make new evaluations and choices. In such cases of instability, reliance on media may increase. Social goals are often set by mass media in such a scenario. In the presence of so many private channels, the freedom of topic selection and a wider platform for communicating with masses is at the edge. A country like Pakistan that falls amongst nations with the lowest literacy rate, visual/electronic media is an extremely effective tool. As Anderson and Meyer mentioned in his Social Action Theory on Media, “For most of the history of research in mass communication, content has been seen as a silver bullet shot from a media gun to penetrate a hapless audience.” It is the best route to transform, inspire and direct the thought process of society. The visual media in the literal sense is the eyes and ears of society. The standards that our media is setting are on a journey to nowhere. From the morning shows, the superficiality starts and continues endlessly and senselessly. The hostesses of morning shows are all dolled up to an exaggerated and unrealistic amount. The shows describe, promote and validate all materialist and commercial values from their the wedding sets and makeup sets to their fashion parades. There is more to a woman than just these side elements. Preventive measures to protect children from sexual, physical and emotional abuse, emotional health, parenting, stress management goal setting and multi-tasking the issues are there to be discussed within an intellectual framework. Giving five minutes to an educationist’s guest appearance is doing no good. The entertainment prime time is dedicated to the complexities of negative family politics, jealousy and reinforcing emotional dependency. Stories are based on ideas where an emotional break-up leads towards a total disaster of one’s life. Among many TV serials, we have very few ones directing towards true issues in a fictional narrative. Our talk shows are the manifestation of lack of respect and manners. The din gets louder and louder with time. Talk shows are the last nail in the coffin. They are the modern demonstration of Darwin’s theory on the survival of the fittest. The louder gets heard and marks the point. Is this the mode of communication we want our kids to reproduce? Despite more than six decades of our independence, there is not even a single children’s right awareness mass media agenda. With the ever-increasing rape and child abuse cases, other than one or two TV serial there, is nothing more on such issues. According to a research published in Journal of Pakistan Medical Association, people are more attracted to watch negative news than positive news. According to statistics revealed by news channels, sensational news sells more than any news segment. People tend to visualise the circumstances negatively and start feeling the stress. The images on TV linger on their mind and cause tremendous psychological effects than stress. The negative psychological effects tend to effect youth and mount depression in old age people. Children begin to notice and react to TV in the age when they are unable to distinguish between fact and fantasy. The media policy seems to be stuck on the laws on the usage of words and comments. The bigger task of policy making is almost invisible. The priorities seem so far apart than the reality. When people’s awareness raise is dependent on electronic media due to illiteracy, then the duty of electronic media is higher. We live in two extremes, a world where all is good, portrayed by national state owned TV and a glamorous, glittery and loud world of private channels. The rights of minorities, children and women are bulldozed daily on multiple occasions. Health, education, tolerance, parenting, self-protection, abuse prevention and civil rights are our core issues. Media sets the norms and has ability to perpetuate it in society. Although we are born in different times and comparisons are a junction to nowhere, yet the deterioration over the years is an indicator. Intellect, quality and content all have deteriorated badly over the years. The most unfortunate part is the lack of professionalism and ethics. The mass media is the result and outcome of evolution by various philosophers and their theories. Its effects and the importance are mentioned in their studies again and again. Such ethics are violated at the hands of the media itself, the fourth pillar of the state. At one hand we talk of equity and civil rights, on the other hand, transgender are mimicked on TV shows for the sake of comedy. At the end the contents shown on media are neither past nor future, it’s just gazing into the same patterned programs. As it has been said that the problem with our society is that our values are not in the right place. There are an awful lot of bleeding and naked bodies on prime-time networks, but not nearly enough content on public programming. Public awareness programmes on serious issues like rape, child abuse are rare. Intellect is based upon how well one can growl in a talk show and comedy is humiliation of the other one. This kind of entertainment is like a commercial commodity consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced easily. The writer is a children’s right activist and a former educationist. She can be reached at nabiha.shahram@icloud.com