This one was due for a long time, lying in the drafts folder with dust collecting over it, so here it is...
How often does it happen that you turn on a news channel and see those flashing "Breaking News" banners marqueeing all over the TV screen...actually it happens all the time now. What this is meant to imply is that there is some news which stands out of the bulletin and demands immediate attention, but these days this is rarely the case. It is often not the news item but the poor channel which pleads for your attention, putting any of the seemingly eye-catching news in the flashing ticker and if that does not rake in the desired TRP's, they don't shy from creating some news that's "breaking" enough(breaking what, they only can answer that).
What prompts me to bawl out on these channels are the following so called breaking news, have a look at these and decide yourself which one is the most breaking...
"5 year old girl claims to be a reincarnation of Kalpana Chawla"...reporters quiz the poor child for an hour on live television, the channels calls on a host of people ranging from astronomers to astrologers inspecting the veracity of the claim...
"a man who eats only grass"...gets prime time coverage on a leading news channel and is interviewed about the rather different preferences of his taste buds...
"a 14 year village boy suddenly starts speaking fluent English in American accent and further declares to be a rebirth of a scientist"...the boy being confronted by a panel of psychologists, astrologers, scientists and many others...this story was shown continuously for about two to three hours after every hour...in short the boy was a runaway TV star, threatening even the ratings of Ekta Kapoor's daily soaps.
And not to forget the daily dose of "bhoots and disturbed souls" who also get their due regularly on prime time news. Another man who has made a name for himself is the "Sansani guy", don't remeber him?..."Chain se sona hai to jaag jao"...this must help you replenish your memories. Perhaps the guy was chosen to anchor this programme coz his appearance helps the audiences to relate better with the wanted criminals he's making us aware against. Some even say that the old night time warning given by mothers to their children- "soja beta nahin to Gabbar aajayega..." would be far more effective this way..."soja beta nahin to Sansani vaale uncle aajayenge..."
With the growing list of News channels these attention seeking TRP wars are set to be more intense but what's going to suffer is the credibility of these channels and availability is of quality news. Hope these channels stop supplying broken news as breaking news and salvage their own reputations.
3 comments:
Astrology on news channels gets on my nerves.
NDTV India is the only channel which still has some dignity.
exactly my sentiments..!!!!!
and i guess there are loads of tv news channels these days....i get atleast 16 of them at my home!!....only credible ones are cnn ibn and also ndtv....this is even more so the case with a certain telugu news channel named tv9....some of the scandals shown are really obscene and they blur them in "important" positions!!....and the ghost episodes etc are really scary i generally see their desi versions on ZEE telugu News....i guess they are meant for ppl to give nightmares and the kind of voice the narrator has and his/her face and appearance even more so add to the effect..!!!....and i guess.. "India tv" focuses more on scandals through sting operations rather than on anything else.......i get the feeling that my comment is as big as a post so ill stop!! :D
Thanks for writing this.
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