Primetime television news....
Television news has somehow never interested me. The plethora of loud, screaming hosts, debates that end up as shouting matches, so-called arresting visuals that could put a certain Ekta Kapoor to shame, everything being handed out as 'Breaking News' (believe you me, even Rahul Gandhi eating roti at a Dalit's house was branded thusly) -- it don't impress me much. I have loved getting news from that ubiquitous newspaper, and ever since I understood the interwebz, off numerous websites and papers present here. But television for me, especially the Indian channels (both Hindi and English) are a big no-no.
At times though, I do watch some of the Hindi channels for their entertainment value, or when there is nothing else on television worth watching. Clips of Doomsday, the world ending tomorrow, phone screens glowing a mysterious red and then exploding, cows descending from UFOs, and endless parodies and spoofs on the most banal of news and views. A few months back, I decided to watch the primetime news on English channels regularly, merely to keep myself updated with the 'Who's who' of the journalist world (being a hack myself, I thought it was important to know the so-called movers and shakers from my field. Also, more importantly, every time my colleagues and friends talked of Suhasini Haider or Shaili Chopra or some XYZ, I was reduced to nodding my head along wisely without knowing who they actually meant, much like Joey). Enough, I thought then. And I decided to switch to NDTV/CNN-IBN/Times Now/Headlines Today for my dose of 9PM news.
Times Now -- quickly changed the channel and vowed never to come back. Arnab Goswami's chubby face fills up the screen, shoving FDI, Hindu terrorism and what-not down your throats. The panellists are almost drowned out and one can hardly hear anything. Not for me, I thought, and moved on.
The other three turned out to be no different. If it isn't Goswami, it's Rajdeep Sardesai. If it's not him, it's his screechy, loud-mouthed wife Sagarika Ghose (talk of nepotism and independence in the media). If it's not her, it's the changing-haircuts-and-make-up-like-Fernando-Torres-changes-his-hair-colour Barkha Dutt, who was the doyen of new journalism after reporting from those snowy peaks of Kashmir during the Kargil War.
Most of the news is the same. Most of the guests are the same. I wonder if they are paid on an everyday basis (or draw a monthly salary) for dragging their valuable asses to the studios each night. Jayanthi Natarajan, Manish Tiwary, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Chandan Mitra are some of them who are the pick of the lot. I wonder if they come with sleeping bags or have beds installed for them in the studios as well.
Hard as I tried, I could not bring myself to like watching news on television. Trivialising serious issues, glorifying banality to such an extent that the Broadcast Editors’ Association (BEA) felt it compulsory to issue guidelines on the coverage of the Bachchan baby birth. All this was not for me. After two months of putting up with dross and crassness, I switched off from the primetime Breaking news television journalism. And I am quite happy about it.
At times though, I do watch some of the Hindi channels for their entertainment value, or when there is nothing else on television worth watching. Clips of Doomsday, the world ending tomorrow, phone screens glowing a mysterious red and then exploding, cows descending from UFOs, and endless parodies and spoofs on the most banal of news and views. A few months back, I decided to watch the primetime news on English channels regularly, merely to keep myself updated with the 'Who's who' of the journalist world (being a hack myself, I thought it was important to know the so-called movers and shakers from my field. Also, more importantly, every time my colleagues and friends talked of Suhasini Haider or Shaili Chopra or some XYZ, I was reduced to nodding my head along wisely without knowing who they actually meant, much like Joey). Enough, I thought then. And I decided to switch to NDTV/CNN-IBN/Times Now/Headlines Today for my dose of 9PM news.
Times Now -- quickly changed the channel and vowed never to come back. Arnab Goswami's chubby face fills up the screen, shoving FDI, Hindu terrorism and what-not down your throats. The panellists are almost drowned out and one can hardly hear anything. Not for me, I thought, and moved on.
The other three turned out to be no different. If it isn't Goswami, it's Rajdeep Sardesai. If it's not him, it's his screechy, loud-mouthed wife Sagarika Ghose (talk of nepotism and independence in the media). If it's not her, it's the changing-haircuts-and-make-up-like-Fernando-Torres-changes-his-hair-colour Barkha Dutt, who was the doyen of new journalism after reporting from those snowy peaks of Kashmir during the Kargil War.
Most of the news is the same. Most of the guests are the same. I wonder if they are paid on an everyday basis (or draw a monthly salary) for dragging their valuable asses to the studios each night. Jayanthi Natarajan, Manish Tiwary, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Chandan Mitra are some of them who are the pick of the lot. I wonder if they come with sleeping bags or have beds installed for them in the studios as well.
Hard as I tried, I could not bring myself to like watching news on television. Trivialising serious issues, glorifying banality to such an extent that the Broadcast Editors’ Association (BEA) felt it compulsory to issue guidelines on the coverage of the Bachchan baby birth. All this was not for me. After two months of putting up with dross and crassness, I switched off from the primetime Breaking news television journalism. And I am quite happy about it.
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