Talking more, saying less?

IN Media Practice | 17/02/2013

Rather ironically, I end the headline with a question mark. It has become a norm on prime time debates. Will America attack Pakistan? Will it be Modi vs Rahul in 2014? Are we unofficially censored? The topic is sensationalised and the answer is embedded in the question. It is natural. While selecting the topic for a heated debate, any issue which incites passions and divides the audience (Modi, Pakistan, Kashmir) gets precedence.

Should responsible editors on television follow the same premise? Should prime time news be a comprehensive one-hour compilation of national and international news or should it be about debates which stir emotions? We know the answers.

On February 11, 2013, Times Now discussed and debated the issue of Yasin Malik sharing a stage with the alleged 26/11 mastermind. The ticker said, ‘Is the Indian state listening’? As always, the anchor wore his nationalism on his sleeve and invited several panelists, who spoke at the same time, to make the debate a noisy clutter, devoid of a reasoned discourse. As always, everyone was talking more but saying less. Surprisingly, The Times of India on February 12, 2013 chose to publish the news of the separatist leader sharing a stage with the Lashkar chief on page 11 of their newspaper. Clearly, what was important to television news and was debated for an hour was not as important to its counterpart in print.

On February 12, 2013, I wanted to know more about the North Korean nuclear test and its repercussions on South Korea and China. Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions were neither debated nor discussed in detail on any national news channel. However, Mr. Malik’s indiscretions and a recent scam hogged the limelight on most news channels.

It is not a new phenomenon. The channels repeatedly fall for the same enticement. They faced brickbats earlier this year, when an Indian soldier was allegedly beheaded by a neighbouring state. Those who follow prime time debates will agree that news anchors were more interested in jingoism than debating the serious issue of border incursion between India and Pakistan. The attempt to grab eyeballs was obvious.

In his Hindustan Times article (February 10) ‘TV: A mea culpa’ Karan Thapar admits that ‘Television discussions are guilty of controversy-manufacturing’. He was referring to an article by Harish Khare in The Hindu (February 6) relating to the controversial remarks by Ashis Nandy and the television debates that followed thereafter. Thapar writes that the nature of debates “will only change when anchors and channel heads accept that current affairs discussions are not mass audience programmes and must not be thought of as entertainment.”

When everyone is chasing the TRPs, sensationalism is a shared pleasure. Position the news later than 9 pm, nine, and the viewer flips the channel or begins debating dinner choices.  To be fair to news channels, they need eyeballs. The aim is to protect business interests. With more and more youngsters abandoning television news for digital interfaces, news channels alone cannot be blamed for digressing. The viewer is complicit. We get what we demand. With a finger on the remote, we wait for the news channel to hold our attention.

The fact is that editorials and debates help us form opinions. They direct our thought processes. Sadly, we can no longer let the media think for us or mould our opinions. At a time when television news is mostly about whipping passions, leisurely viewing minus reasonable contemplation is a luxury we can ill afford. Entertainment and sensationalism should have little to do with news. But they do. Didn’t we shun the staid Doordarshan news for more appealing news channels? What is the viewer looking for when he watches prime time debates on television? Information? Entertainment? Or a generous mix of both?

No wonder, it makes sense to end in a question mark.