I think you are quite right regarding the model we follow and the lengths news media today will stretch to be able to run any story. In my opinion thought the turning point in the state of affairs in our journalistic history was the introduction of 24 hour news channels.
If you watch DD national, their reporting of news is restricted to half an hour a day which allows them to focus on important issues with tickers running snippets of other news headlines. However, when you are forced to produce news for 24 hours, there is only a limited amount of relevant, important events that occur in a day and therefore the need to look for alternative stories. Therefore, in the vein of Gustav Graves(Die Another Day)you either create your own news or manufature news out of any event. News is a funny word. Anything can be news. To me, you having icecream with your friends is news but is it really important for me to broadcast it nationally? Similarly, Akshay Kumar walking into Crossroads to buy a Tanishq diamond for his fiancee might be news, but is it of any importance to anyone other than the individuals concerned? I am not saying that covering self-immolations, protests or even NGO events are unimportant but to spend a chunk or your programme live in Renaissance(club in Mumbai) is not really news!
I also attribute another reason for this indifference and the general drop in standard of both print and visual media. Mushrooming of news channels has lead to a huge demand for personnel and this demand is not being met by trained or specialised individuals and I think this is why we are bombarded with such sub-standard presentation and ungrammatical language in our news day in and day out.
Sorry for the rant, but you have to see it to believe the kind of rubbish that is being printed and broadcast everyday. I pick up HT and TOI and by and large I only use it to pass my time while drinking my morning coffee. I would prefer an asterix comic to TOI anyday!
On 1/25/06, Buchu <noreply-comment@blogger.com> wrote:
i can't agree more.
the whole thing sounds graphic and awful.
but apart from the individual features of this case, do u think that in the new post 90s liberalized india, with the growth spurt of TV channels, channels will basically do ANYTHING (not unlike american tv that is) to secure viewers. i know i'm setting up a strawman here- the western style media...but there is a part of me that thinks that this is symptomatic of a post 1990s india. maybe i'm wrong...
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Posted by Buchu to Tootles at 1/25/2006 03:43:09 AM
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