They Who Broke News!

This post was originally penned as a response to an article by a beautiful and equally talented fellow journalist on the vicious Breaking News trend set by the news channel, specially the kind of propaganda that was raised regarding the experiment conducted by scientists of CERN. The Indian media had ludicrously termed it as the doomsday experiment….
(Please pardon me fellow journalists. But I know there are many like me who are from the same boat and heavily anguished to see it sink!!)

How much information is right information? This is one aspect which the so-called India’s better than the best news channels overlook at their own leisurely convenience. If this is what the Fourth Pillar of India’s democracy looks and acts like, then a doomsday of greater magnitude isn’t far behind. Media men excuse themselves (lamely though) with the repugnant statement “This is what viewers demand”. No Chayya (the teenager who committed suicide after repeatedly watching the day long broadcast of ‘The day before doomsday’ programmes run by the news channels) would have liked to see the world come to an end.

Thanks to my wise colleague, for describing the reality effectively. I am sure many like me agree that Indians are not over enthused to know the “Way to Yamlok (hell)” when the visuals are infact of the ruins of forts in Rajasthan or of the snow-clad mountains in the north. We are already surviving in hellish times. Nor are we inclined to lose our much needed hours of sleep to be hell-informed (oops!!) about the certain spirit of a nautch girl who brutally slaughters life as an act of vengeance. We have enough gory incidents in our daily lives to draw pleasure or excitement from such televised thrills. The likes of Ram Gopal Verma and his poorer cousins, the Ramsay brothers have entertained us enough with their spine chilling and at times, mind-chilling movies. The much assaulted and well battered senses of the common man (that includes even the Gucci and Prada wearing gentry!!) need a little respite and some actual news which is far removed from the hyped trend of gimmicky stories garbed as NEWS.

After witnessing the over-the-top, maniacal coverage of the Big Bang experiment, my friend, Arvind, much disturbed that he was, ruminated and made a statement, which apparently might seem simple, but on a second ponder reflected what media had come to become in the present times. “Gone are the days when we looked forward to ‘The World This Week’ every Friday on Doordarshan for news and information.” True Arvind, those days are gone and somehow ominously have dragged the true essence of news along. We are left amidst a heap of despicable, shoddy scribes and so-called 24/7 news channels which nonchalantly make a mockery of the profession and us, the viewers, who sadly provide them with another equally vile phenomenon, the TRP.

Also now it seems the print brethren have picked up the trend and customised it to suit their medium. Or how else could one explain the stories, severely lacking in details and facts about the same Bing-Bang doomsday that did the rounds in some of the leading dailies and their supplements.

Irony infact is that journalism, today, is vis-a-vis a Black Hole like phenomenon, with mindless reporting and factually lacking stories, irresponsible and mob journalism waiting with their mouth open to drown this much hailed profession into eternal darkness.

So the next time, dear friends who are reading this article, you want to switch on the TV, remember that there are entertainment channels too which serve what they claim. I say so because I somehow have taken pity on their sloppy TRPs, thanks to all the ‘masala’ and sleaze that is served by the news channels. Zoom sulks because its programme content was long televised by India TV and Star News!!

And as I decide to wind up for the day, truth seems to have dawned on me and I know now why the vernacular news channels behave like mad, rabid dogs biting at anything that looks even a tad-bit like news and ballooning them to gigantic proportions. Because;

“If you are on the idiot box, do as the idiots do.”