Mediacrity:- Genesis (Part 1)

In 1989, NDTV was the first private Indian news channel to telecast their feed on national channel i.e Doordarshan for weekly 30 minutes show. If Prannoy Roy (one of the founding members of NDTV ) is to be believed, every telecast had to be first approved by the PMO or the I & B ministry before they were given the go ahead. In the early part of this decade, when the News “business” was opened up for private investment, it was generally considered to be a step in the right direction, moving from a more autocratic centralized news network (http://www.naukrihub.com/india/media/recent-developments/liberalization.html).

Looking back, we could have done with half the discussion done on the current Women’s Bill. Free market and competition comes with its own dynamics. While news network is generally expected to be a more socially relevant and credible channel of information mirroring the fallacies of society, it also is essentially handled by people like us. People who have same cravings and are susceptible to same greed that drives all of us. Liberalization opened up pandora’s box and what we have witnessed this decade is expansive growth of mainstream news media, increasing from 4 mainstream news channels to close to 150 other than the regional channels. This is not a bone of contention as far as I am concerned.

My interest is not in judging the role and working of the media from a societal perspective in its current “avatar”, I have long given up any disgruntled ideas of idealism which these days can easily be mistaken for Marxism or socialism. But my endeavour is to reconcile my standards for consumption filter with what is being ditched out as “news”. News networks are caught in a precarious position where they have to perform a balancing act between cut throat competition for TRPs and keeping certain moral standards sometimes associated with them. The advent of 24/7 news has made the task more complex with a more time to fill and also to lure the increasingly fickle audience from changing the channel. In this endeavour, news channels have to invariably move from a objective straight faced news reporting to a more knee jerk, reactionary, dramatic and sensationalist approach. The idea being “Entertainment” with some information if possible. Essentially the journalists are now chomping at the bid for the role of rock stars or a movie stars in India reducing every issue to a common rubble of banality, where the news maker is taking prominence over the news.

With strong visuals and dramatic soundtrack, almost Michael Bay like high octane editing, channels use every trick in the book to hold your attention which invariably will have an effect on the content which now brings us to the "BREAKING NEWS". The 26/11 attack in Mumbai, the coveted Abhi-Ash wedding, Big B ko Sardi ho Gayi or Rajasthan Royal winning the toss and electing to bat have all come under the pedigree of “Breaking news”. While, I have been skeptical in the past of the approach and attitude of our media, lately I have reconciled with the fact that their predicament is no way dissimilar to the hawkers near Siddhivinayak, Chor Bazaar or Juhu Beach. Nobody is doing this for charity, everyone is in it for profits and they will resort to whatever it takes to grab some of your not so precious time

It is a phenomena that is not peculiar to News business alone. Ask yourself, How many of you would go for a film based on psychological study of an autistic person who struggles through life on a day to day basis yet finds his place in the world and as suppose to uplifting story of an autistic genius (preferably Sharukh Khan who is a natural in this role) who goes to the US (by himself) wins his wife over and saves people in flood stricken Katrina amd ofcourse re-builds the entire town all by himself by the power of LOVE . We Indians always have flair for the dramatic and stupid which is exactly what news channels sought to do. Dumb it down. This has only just started in our country. The western world had been through this phase of corporatization and dilution of mainstream news media 30 years ago. Any of the readers who follows US news network would know how news channels have become open partisan hacks with Olbermann (CNBC) on the Left and Hannity (FOX news) on the right. While, the news channels are not Partisan in India as yet, they also have a propaganda which they need to pursue to appease their viewer base and to maintain the TRPs. The recent events in Australia are classical example of a news channel (Times Now) pursuing and covering a story in a way to fit its script or the fear mongering during the 26/11 attacks or the hate mongering in the aftermath. The tone that a channel is anything but a spontaneous reaction. It is a well thought out agenda in hope to get great viewership. Different news channels for would adopt a different line of action depending on the market it is targeting and the image that it carries.

The task is much easier for channels like Aaj Tak or India TV which has from day 1 never claimed to wear the burden of truth on their sleeves. They can resort to “Himalaya main kyon baar baar ate hain Aliens”, India TV’s expose on cross-terrestrial infiltration? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-CV_1WzSTk or “Kiske paas hai Katrina ki pant?” (Who has Katrina’s pants?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO5yvHUzcc and one more Happy who in his previous birth used to be a man called Sukhvinder and wants to now stay with the parents from his previous birth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv-NoeAlx9k . Now, I would be lying if I say that I do not enjoy this kind of lunacy. In fact, I am more than grateful to Aaj tak to help me pack my bags for apocalypse of 2012. But these channel do not operate in an ambiguous area of work. They practice exactly what they preach. The problem is more complex for the middle of the road channels.

Now where do we the “Aam Janta” (Mango People) stand in all of this?

Aage ki story break ke baad

To be cont...