There is much that is good about Indian TV – its independence, its activism and so on. However there is much that is not good at all. Some of the not-good is mentioned below.
1. The WYP Brigade:
We have all seen our TV personalities interviewing celebrities. Most of these persons have wide grins on their faces, a strange light in their eyes and “simper, simper” written all over their body language. I call these media persons the WYP brigade. The initials stand for “Wet Your Pants”, which these interviewers appear to do every time a celebrity deigns to smile at them.
One exception is perhaps Karan Johar, but then he is not the typical media professional. He speaks to his interviewees as an equal and a friend. Karan Thapar is another exception. Most others belong to the WYP Brigade. Fairly well-known personalities are surprising members of the WYP Brigade. At times even Barkha Dutt and Rajat Sharma show symptoms of this, though their WYP status is a bit muted as compared to most others.
2. Repetitiveness:
Indian TV Channels appear to be seriously short of content. This is perhaps responsible for endless repetition of the same news item.
First the anchor tells us about the item in some detail. Then, visuals of the story will be shown and the media-rep on site will narrate exactly the same thing that the anchor has just said. The “participants”, victims or their next of kin are then interviewed with leading questions leading to cloned answers. Then two or three “observers” and “experts” are interviewed and they say the same thing. Often, after all this, the anchor repeats exactly what he or she had said the first time around. After one hour the whole circus is repeated again. And again.
3. Lack of homework:
This can frequently be seen in the discussion of issues. The TV anchor appears to be quite innocent of facts and figures. It appears that his or her job is only to take the mike from one member of the audience/panel to another. You can see this not only in “ordinary” anchors but even in programs conducted by well-known anchors such as Barkha Dutt. No hard questions based on the anchor’s own research, are asked. Karan Thapar and, sometimes, Rajat Sharma do their homework but they are exceptions.
4. Sensationalisation:
We have all heard the raving “Cola mein Zahar Hai” cry of many media anchors, based on half-baked “research” without any perspective, background information or other substantiating fact. Similar incidents about other matters tell us how TRP ratings and not professionalism dictate our media strategy. Accuracy does not appear to be a prime consideration of our TV reporting and neither does speaking in a ‘normal’ tone. The intonation of the majority of our TV anchors on the ‘popular’ channels is a high-pitched, breathless one, even if they are saying something inane.
5. Shamelessness:
Very often we find that a TV channel reported a “news” item that was based on unfounded rumors and is proven wrong the next day. The TV Channel never apologizes or corrects its previous report regardless of the magnitude of the blunder.
6. Trivialisation and dumbing down:
TV channels devote hours and hours to trivial stories such as Amitabh Bacchan visiting a temple, someone demonstrating against perceived slight to “their bhavanas”, long programmes on astrology etc. Never-ending pre-pre-match, pre-match, post match, post-post-match commentaries on cricket are the norm with talking heads opining gravely about something pre-match and then changing their tune post-match without so much as an excuse-me.
The common rationalization given is that the audience wants this. Surely the TV Channels have a very low opinion of the audience. Moreover, how will they know what the audience wants unless they try something else? Maybe this takes more creativity than they have in-house or are able to afford and they feel safe doing the same thing again and again. We see something similar in our TV serials and in our advertising companies using a celebrity in their ad so that they do not have to exercise their grey cells and be creative.
7. Dishonesty:
Almost all TV Channels have SMS polls, mostly on fairly inane subjects. They invite the audience to send in their SMSs but almost never tell them how much such an SMS would cost. Sometimes “premium rates apply” is mentioned but what these premium rates are, remains unsaid. The poll results do not mention the sample size or even whether repeat messages from the same number have been removed from the survey.
8. Advertorials:
This is perhaps an example of the previous point. Some TV Channels get paid for highlighting certain items – film releases, property or anything else. They never mention that their reporting in such cases is at least partly in return for funds received.
9. Prejudices:
Most channels have an “official” line. They are for something and dead set against something. For example, if a TV Channel is interviewing a member of the RSS of VHP, you can see that he or she is patently biased against these. However, as mentioned earlier, they will not back up their biases through homework. No channel has even bothered to analyse what secularism means, while parroting the views of “secular” politicians and intelligentsia.
They project themselves to be anti-this or anti-that because that is what they think their viewers like to see. The TV channels are not a faultless mirror reflecting the society. They are distorted reflectors, showing everything in the light of their own prejudices.
10. Newsmaking:
TV Channels have started making news. There is nothing wrong in this per se, if such newsmaking pertains to unearthing of scams and to other such antisocial practices. However, when they start giving air-time to lumpen elements who object to petty things – Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty, for example – then these lumpen elements start protesting just to get air-time. In the process, everyone’s time is wasted, the undeserving get undue publicity and the gullible get misled, sometimes causing law and order problems and loss of public property, not to mention public sanity.
The Rs. 2 Crore question is, “What can we do about the above”?
Unfortunately there are no four choices available to pick from. The concerned authorities seem to wield a mean moralistic stick but do not appear concerned about the real rot mentioned above, so there no life-lines available either.
Kishore Asthana
Gurgaon
asthana1@yahoo.com
