Of all the television channels, new channels were, once upon a time,
the most entertaining ones, more than the “entertainment” channels. Not
anymore. More so with the arrival of new, aggressive players in the scene. “Aggressive”
is not the viewers’ claim though!
These channels have, over time, transformed more into “investigative”
reporters, rather than news reporters. And here, too, the “investigative” tag
was not attached by the viewers.
“First visuals”, “First on XYZ Channel”, etc., have become the normal
labels over a news channel screen, now-a-days. It is dog fight out there, with blatant
disrespect to the media etiquettes. Once-respected presenters, reporters, media
persons have now become such nauseous sight that watching once-favourite
programs has now been pushed to the backburner.
A reputed weekly, some time ago, also had carried a piece about what
foreign news reporters think of their Indian counterparts, and it did not make
for happy reading. Their channels were being linked up to these Indian news channels
to bring “live” coverage and “expert” comments from the local reporters.
Of late, a celebrity grand-daughter’s fascination for technology, and
gadgets, becomes “breaking news”!
Adding to the melee are the political parties’ spokespersons – official
and otherwise. They seem to think the viewers are so gullible that they may be
fed even with filth.
Talking of expert comments, the same weekly recently carried a brief on
the ongoing Ashes series – and made a mockery of Indian commentators, compared
to the ones who come on air during test matches in England. And, rightly so,
the note was so true, that the difference between Test matches and ODI and T20s
can be felt just by the commentary. More so, when Test matches happen in
England!
Not to speak of the advertisements – we are fed with lies and more lies
every day and night, when smears and blots would never go with the “best” of
washing powders! A Sunday edition of a leading daily also recently interviewed
about the effect, or otherwise, of skin whitening creams, and the responses
were shocking, made light only by Shekhar Kapur’s tweets (@shekharkapur)!
The lesser said about the regional language news channels the better.
