February 28, 2009

What is NEWS ?

What is news, when there are 215 news channels and 97 more news channels in various levels of approval, this becomes a very interesting question. All these many TV journos, reporters and camera men vying for anything that's sounds spooky, interesting, disastrous, scandalous or even mundane. They are just looking for anything that can make the TRP graph climb upwards.

In this hunt for news ethics, empathy and compassion becomes irrelevant. The rat race becomes so stressful that some of them create their own news to keep up the pace. They create their own masala and mix it on anything they think can make some heads turn.

Like one of my good friend said if you switch to Aaj Tak it will look like the world is going to end and there is so much crime and corruption all around. And then you come outside life was as it was slow, steady and uneventful as usual. They are responsible for lot of panic and hysteria on many normal circumstances. i think someone should reeducate them on what is news and whats not. Like today there was too much buzz on this situation where the SDM (for the uninitiated the Oscar winning Slum Dog Millionaire) child stars father slapped him for not giving an interview. And all of a sudden you see people discussing it with panels and calling in experts ranging from child psychologists to forensic doctors to human rights activists to get expert reviews. Last heard someone approached Sreeshanth for a comparative analysis with the slap he got and how he would react in such a situation lol.

I know how difficult it can be to find news when me the obsessive blogger with 2+1 readers are finding it difficult to find topics to write on. But there should be some self respect on giving publicity for the unnecessary. It wont be late before these people start placing control centers in each localities for identifying ordinary things that can be made into an issue any time.

I don't deny the fact that they have been doing an excellent job off late reporting on issues of national and international significance. i really appreciate on the minute to minute update on the Mumbai attack and the way they have handled the Oscarmania.

Iam pretty sure many of you would have felt the irrelevance of some flash news or some major cover story that was broadcasted recently. I dont expect any of you to comment but if you do it could be interesting lol.

P.S The word news was derived by joining the first letter of north,east,west and south.

2 comments:

  1. What you have spoken about is true. But you have not looked at the other side. When 'Prince' happened (the boy who fell in the drain), only few channels of the Live India/India TV breed aired it at first. But when the TRPs were looked at, all the audiences were watching the "Prince" news on these news entertainment channels.
    TV channels need to give what the audience watch as they also need advertisers and money to function. Those of us who complain are just a minority. The majority of the channels' target audience actually prefer the flimsy news. Cannot blame the tv news media entirely in this case. Case of bread and butter. :)

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  2. TRP rates are rigged like everything else and we dont even know what to watch and what not to as we all are confused hehehe and the case of bread and butter an upcoming jurno never puts mud in her plate hehehehe

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