Media in Delhi is doing a good job at misleading us and subjecting us to loud inconsequential debates by presenting them as ‘news’. In government channels like Doordarshan, you still get to see some news – national and international – without the noise. We all criticise them for propagating government agenda, but at least they are better than the so-called champions of the ‘FREE PRESS’. Today, the TV news is dying to be precise. Thanks to some (mostly all) shoddy news anchors who forgot the lessons of journalism – if they had ever studied them.
As a journalist, I have a profound interest in news. I watch news channels more than any other TV content, one hour before leaving the office and 2-3 hours after I’m home from work. My grandma often asks me why do you watch this shit (she said something else, but shit is the right word here). She says it is their daily drama, so switch to some other channel.
Prime Time Is Hijacked By News Anchors
Primetime news is hijacked by news channels for profits. Loud debates with no outcomes have now become a form of ‘news’. Research on a topic has become an outdated concept. These big news channels are not much concerned with any of the burning issues in the country right now – if they do not help their TRPs. Ram temple has been in the news for decades, and I don’t understand why it is relevant even now. For the past two weeks, this is what I am watching day and night endlessly without getting much information or gaining any knowledge in return. When this matter went to the apex court for hearing, before and after every hearing, TV channels shun every other news and called its reporters to cover this exclusively. Let me tell you their script: one reporter will be present in Ayodhya talking to priests, one outside the Supreme Court giving expert opinions and a news anchor sitting in the newsroom with a bunch of crook politicians. This is the standard script and stage, followed by almost every TV news channel making a fool out of you.
“It is hard news that catches readers’ attention. Features hold them,” said somebody. Today, the elements are downright missing, and the hard news has become the only news available.
N.E.W.S. In Modern-day India
The news is derived from the word ‘new’, and it is as an acronym for north, east, west and south. When it comes to the so-called national news channels in our country, south and east are lost entirely. Their focus starts from Lutyens Delhi political updates to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Thanks to our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, western Indian state Gujarat has also gained prominence in news spaces now. Today, the news is confined to small slots like super-fast 100 daily bulletins.
While 15 miners are still trapped in a flooded coal mine for 29 days now in Meghalaya, the media is still busy debating Ram temple, and the recently passed 124th Amendment bill that gives 10% quota to economically weaker people belonging to the general caste. I have witnessed how rescue operations received live media coverage in the past when in a series, children were stuck in the borewells. Why are Meghalaya miners being deprived of such attention? We should question the national news anchors for their inhumane treatment to these miners – which is a disgrace to journalism and its ethics.
Watch this interesting standup based on Meghalaya rescue operations:
What’s Next?
The standards of journalism are declining as the TRPs are increasing, and the war for more TRPs is intensifying. There is no scarcity of news stories, but why would anyone take the pain of coming outside their air-conditioned newsrooms? They often blame the audience for the deplorable condition of news nowadays. There is more to news than knowing Rafale deal is a scam or not or whether Ram temple should be constructed or not. Four people in the newsroom, four connected by video, a total of eight mini screens debating, screaming and violently fighting to prove their point is not news. Debates are not news; news without substantial facts isn’t news either. Debates are important, but the quality of content and speakers seem to be absent today.
Some anchors, not many in numbers, have upheld the journalistic ethics. But how long will they sustain with low TRPs? The news is awaiting a reform, but it will not happen before the 2019 general elections and a year later. The problem is: we are aware it needs attention but we are not doing enough or anything about it.