It has
been a general practice for me to watch news on TV every night after
I have my dinner, ever since television came to my home town Pune in
1974. I am sure that many of readers must have also become accustomed
to this schedule in their lives. There have been periods or spells,
wherein I did deviate from this schedule, because the news had become
simply unwatchable.
The
first of these came within an year or two after I had developed this
new habit, when India's then prime minister Indira Gandhi had
declared a national emergency. The TV broadcast time was very limited
in those days. From 7 PM to 10.30 PM only. There used to be two news
bulletins every day. On at 7.30 PM in Marathi, giving mostly regional
news and one at 10.00 PM giving more of national coverage. Since, TV
was still mostly operated by All India Radio, the news bulletins
always had much more spoken news than any video footage. I could
never make to 7.30 news but I always watched the 10.30 national news.
During emergency days, the news was strictly controlled and censored.
Nothing was said or shown on TV that could be considered as contrary
to official Government views. The result was that the news telecast
started becoming such drab and boring monologue that I almost decided
to give it up.
The
second spell that kept me away from TV news came in 1984 immediately
after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had ordered a military action
against the most important Sikh Gurudwara at Amritsar city. In the
aftermath, TV had adopted such dull, drab and terrible routine that
to watch TV became, instead of a pleasant past time to a torturous
one. Luckily, I went on a 2 month tour of Europe and US and was
saved from watching TV in the evenings covering the tumultuous events
that happened afterwords in which Indira Gandhi was assassinated and
there were huge riots in New Delhi.
Satellite
TV came to India in 1990's like a whiff of fresh air that broke
cordons of socialistic bureaucratic fiefdom. For first few years, we
could see only old TV programming produced by American networks. This
changed soon after Indian TV channels were started and we started
getting programming made in India and in local languages. No news was
yet allowed to be broadcast by private networks. In the 2000's decade
first private news networks appeared. TV watchers like me, were
overjoyed as these networks broke the Government hegemony over media
and tried to provide independent viewpoint to the viewers. There are
tens of news channels now broadcasting to people on 24 X 7 basis.
Recently,
the broadcasting standards of the channels appears to have changed
unfortunately for the worst and they seem to be driven by one and
only one motive; that of increasing their TRP and effectively the
advertisement revenue. To achieve this, they seem to be concentrating
only on the sensational stuff, many a times forgetting that they are
overdoing it. Let me give you two recent examples.
Nepal
was struck with a severe earthquake two weeks ago. Indian media were
quick and very effective in reaching there and projected very well
the instantaneous and generous aid that India had offered. But, as
it happens in most of the news covered these days, Indian TV media
went hyperactive and wanted to be everywhere, including inside
helicopter sorties. This started irritating local Nepalese. So peeved
were thousands of Internet users in Nepal that they even started a
twitter handle #GoHomeIndianMedia to criticize Indian journalists on
the ground. This handle remained trending on twitter in Nepal for
three days.
A
Nepalese non resident told CNN "Your (India)media and media
personnel are acting like they are shooting some kind of family
serials, I think you are a human before you become a media person."
According to one post, a reporter was seen shoving a microphone at a
mother who had just lost her son before asking, "How do you
feel?" Many twitterati from India were sympathetic to Nepalese.
One tweet says.
Anyone,
who regularly watches, Indian news media, will not be surprised at
all with this reaction. So bad has the standard fallen that these
days any trivial issue is blown up out of proportion. Rape, which can
not be considered trivial by any standard, is a favourite subject of
the channels, yet it is so much overdone that one starts feeling
irritated by the details provided.
Four
days back, a court of justice, gave its verdict in a 13 year old case
in which a popular Bollywood actor was convicted on charges of
drunken driving that had resulted in to one death. Indian media was
violently agitated and whipped up such a frenzy that it appeared
that world was coming to an end. Two days letter, when the same actor
was given bail on production of a surety bond, the media went
completly crazy. From mid noon till late night, all news channels
kept repeating and discussing the issue of bail. By night, I could
not take it any more and felt nauseating with the whole affair and
just switched off.
I am
sorry to say, but if Indian TV media keep overdoing this way, they
will soon loose all credibility and worthiness. Readers might ask me,
if I am so much peeved by these media, why do I watch them? The plain
answer to that is I do not. Occasionally, I might browse through
these channels but that is for few seconds only, just to ticker news.
I am back full circle and watch these days, Government media news
channel. It may be dull and simple, but they have far more balanced
coverage of news and they do not overdo things.
The
private TV news networks, which started with great promise, are now
facing viewer's resentments. Unless they take steps immediately to
improve, they appear to be heading towards a sudden crash. Obviously,
their loss is gain for Government news media. What an irony?
10th
May 2015
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