Noise about News

I am not unraveling the mystery of the Holy Grail by saying that the fourth estate often prejudiced, foists its own opinions and priorities as a picture of reality. This is particularly true about the television media because herd mentality is likely to be more prevalent in a medium that is financially and content-wise more demanding. A newspaper can get away with printing fifteen pages a day, how do 24X7 news channels cope with dearth of “news-worthy” stories?

Well they don’t use creativity or for that matter do any real field work because for them India really comprises two cities: Delhi and Mumbai. So if Bunty of Kanjurmarg kisses Bubbly of Juhu at Bandra bandstand or wicked Vicky smokes pot, it makes headlines: never mind that the viewer sitting in Bhubaneshwar would rather watch K-serials for his daily dose of sensational drama. Reality television on news channels has become so sickening that most viewers prefer to watch commercials on the sports channel while having dinner. The problem is, not one channel dares to be different, 15 news channels all clones of one another: even the ticker color and content are the same (age of reusability engineering you see). All of them cover the kiss and the snort like the GDP of the nation depends on these two events.

I am not entirely dismissive of the 24X7 forum dedicated to news. In fact in a country like India it is very much needed. My point is that the lack of news is definitely not the reason for channels to stoop to such abysmal levels. There is news and it is definitely happening all around us, but the channels want to cover only “happening” stories: much like the Bollywood directors pandering to the “masses” with potboilers. If the kiss-and-yell formula works show it 24X7X30. In that sense the print medium (Slimes of India being an exception) has retained its dignity by focusing not on sound bytes and “live” data but on implications, the bigger picture and some investigative journalism. They are not trying to compete with the “live” television on who gets to shoot Aishwarya’s eyelashes first or gets the first words out of Rahul’s mouth (now don’t ask me which Rahul). In print, the experts get to express their thoughts freely without being interrupted, hackled, disconnected and veered away by the TV journalists. At least the back end editing is appropriately done to prevent the interviews from appearing like police interrogations and the reader is spared the grotesque digressions and arguments.

Instead of swarming like ants to a grain of sugar, they could use a bit of creativity to be different. Dedicate one hour to focus on a specific city (one hour on air for a 24 hour news channel is not going to cause loss of viewership, given that flipping channels will soon become a national sport). Announce the name of the city under scan a day in advance. Get viewers to post in their issues: there is no city/town that has no issues and sufficient number of cities in India to keep this alive. Get down to ground zero, investigate the problem, cover the good as well as bad aspects of the situation and get authorities to address the issue. Before you start your “pragmatic and practical” feasibility analysis to destroy my idea: this is not rocket science or utopia. The ITV in UK had a small variant of such a kind on air and it was hugely popular: it was a mission to destroy all old/ill-maintained/illegal structures that had become eye sores and public nuisance. Given the kind of air time that is afforded by the 24X7 news channels, this is definitely more viable, relevant and newsworthy than how to illegally procure cocaine in India.

Journalism today, is a mere spectator and commentator to say the least. In fact it is much worse; it serves like a crude form of entertainment by titillating and distracting people from the real social political and economic issues. Gone are the days when active journalism moved masses and governments into action, today it is the voyeuristic needs of the masses and airtime for politicians that drive the newspapers and channels.