Dear Editor,
Your critiques of media practices do make for an interesting read. The information seems well-researched and the opinion has an insight that wouldn`t reveal itself to a lay reader despite his own private investigation into an issue.
This pertains to the article "Banti and Bablification of news". The obsevations made are quite apt however some of them seem to emanate from a certain naivette in the understanding of media practices. Though no qualified authority myself, as a regular consumer of TV programmes, I do feel that NDTV is a product of smart news packaging and the hype built around its "firebrand" journalists ( Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai). News stories carried on most channels are more or less uniform. Whether one is watching Headlines Today or an NDTV, the net impact on a viewer in terms of understanding the issues is marginal owing to larger contexts amiss from reportage. I take the liberty to generalize as I`ve always found newspapers to be a better source and record of information. So what distinguishes any two rival news channels is the quality of editorial content and its presesentation of major issues such as the Kashmir problem.
Elaboration becomes imperative here to state the case. On April 6, 2005-the day of Srinagar-Muzzaffarpur bus journey- NDTV took its camera crew to Srinagar headed by Barkha Dutt who gave us a live commentary from the tourist center that suffered a terrorist attack just a day before. Now, Barkha Dutt certainly seems to have spent some time at an acting school or done theater classes for all the histrionics she delivers along with the news. This was unmistakably the case when she went down south to cover the Tsunami devastation. Suddenly, we saw a grief-stricken Barkha with her new matt look with inexplicable eye bags?? Where did she develop those out of the blue? The tsunami coverage on TV would be heart-rending for just anyone owing to its visual appeal to human pathos. Barkha came across as plain dramatic for all her journalisitc fervour. This is of course not to deny the credit to the television for the coverage of the tragedy but Dutt could have done without the pretense.
Coming back to the coverage of April 6 bus journey, Headlines Today chose to feature a discussion with a panel of experts, speaking about the Kashmir issues and the plausible solutions. Yeah, so we`ve had myriad discussions on Kashmir and every latest development throws the question back into debate. But if we read between the lines, the questions asked by journalists on television are neither novel nor do they offer any real perspective on the issue. The discussion turns into the same old drab presentation of ideas by a couple of new faces to be replaced in the next such forum. But yet, a discussion helps to better understand the implications of the new developments-in this case the "irreversible" peace process-by involving people from the other side. Of course, what we saw on NDTV was the intrepid `Barkha Datt drama` packed with live coverage thrill from Kashmir. The point is not that the coverage is a bad idea but it`s very routine as the journalist intones the same questions reducing it to mere rhetoric. It`s a far better idea to read newspaper columns which are not without their set of putative flaws as pointed out to by your site. But still, it does make for a more in-depth analysis.
NDTV is just about marginally less mediocre may be. A look at its programmes is revealing. Jai Jawan, the program where Bollywood stars meet the Indian Army and their families is baloney of the most pretentious order. What started out as a reasonably novel idea has assumed a formulaic frequency with filmstars obliging the news channel in hordes to appear on the show. From Aishwarya Rai to Kareena Kapoor, all the damsels have razzled-dazzled at the national borders, mouthed cliched lines in deference to the shaheeds and showed concern for their families. It is serious offensive claptrap to be telecast on national television. Agreed, there are viewers UNLIKE me who would watch it and say wow but isn`t that where TRPs dictate the norm in TV programming? Other programmes like Night Out that cover the Page 3 news from the world of fashion and entertainment remain protoypes of TRP driven news. Why should any responsible channel give us an overdose of glamour when there are others exclusively and obsessively devoted to the cause (read Zoom of the Times group)? Alternatively, it can devote such resources to programmes of a different sorts. For instance, virtually none of the English news channels in India have documentary features dealing with serious issues. Programmes like Big Fight and We the People remain facile and unimaginative at times with debates over some really silly issues exceeded only by the questions raised (the debate on the MMS clip).
One needs to astutely look at the content of the programmes before lauding the channel for carrying the story in terms of what is being offered by other channels. We constantly need to ask the question how effectively (notwithstanding the media`s ownership by the corporate and advertisers` interests) a certain TV programme reflects on the existing socio political structures of the society and takes up issues that necessitate a constructive debate evolving substantive action and not just reduce the debate to mindless rhetoric.
Pawan Singh
Hyderabad
June 7, 2005