MEDIA MATTERS
Changing news
BY SEVANTI NINAN
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The emergence of a vocal middle class, and 24-hour news channels, have led to a broad interpretation of the term "news".
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Would it reduce the blood pressure of old-time hacks if one were to modify their nomenclature and call them lifestyle channels?
IN the United States, 24-hour news took away the sanctity of evening network news and the importance of the anchor who delivered it. Anchors changed by the hour, and everything became news.
In West Asia, satellite TV news has put Arab leaders under greater scrutiny than ever before. Over there, they've gone from soft to hard with a freedom that is new.
And in India the traditional news establishment has been wrenched from its moorings by the emergence of a middle class, and a youthful segment within it. Why that should happen is mystifying, but there it is. Upward mobility has meant more news consumers whose preferences are constantly second-guessed. And much less of news as we used to understand it.
Selling proposition
"Don" ke bina Hindustan mein news channel chalana sirf mushkil nahin hain, na mumkin hai. (It is not just difficult to run a news channel in India without "Don", it is impossible.) For an entire fortnight it seemed like TV news had bought that proposition wholesale. From re-running the original version of that line, to the overheated coverage of the movie's release, to interviewing the new Don on news channels which he cheesily described as mediocre. Between "Don" and Deepavali, with "Jaaneman" getting a generous look in, you could have been forgiven for wondering where the news went. The Champions Trophy coverage was the hardest the news got.
At 9.30 p.m. the day the movie released, you had "Jaaneman" versus "Don" on Times Now, Sanjay Dutt on his life on NDTV, Interviews with "Jaaneman's" lead stars on CNN-IBN, "Don" on Headlines Today, "Jaaneman" on Aaj Tak, Khan vs. Khan on Star News, and Which is the Bigger Khan on Zee News. That's called choice. Two hours earlier, on all of the above, you would have found cricket.
And in between everybody behaved as if they had just discovered Deepavali. Join Us, For the Great Indian Shopping Experience. Indians apparently now have money. Eighty three thousand millionaires, and counting. And like the rich everywhere, their problems are different. Where will you leave your pooches when you go away for Deepavali? We'll tell you about a dog resort. What does a diabetic do at Deepavali? We'll tell you about the sugar free options. Some party pooper would say all that splurging was disgusting in a poor country. So on NDTV they were worrying about the rich being unfairly targeted. And kindly offering ways to assuage your conscience. "Here's how you can contribute to help farmers in U.P. It's going to be a dark Deepavali for them." The solicitousness continued after Deepavali had come and gone. Then it was "Fighting Deepavali Blues". Tips for warding off Deepavali fatigue, on a news bulletin, no less.
Would it reduce the blood pressure of old-time hacks watching all this if one were to modify their nomenclature and call them lifestyle channels? Because then it's perfectly alright for Star Lifestyle News to bring us a special on the Star Plus bahus going Deepavali shopping. Or for Lifestyle Today to serve up at 9 p.m. its sex special on "What Men Want" (I'll spare you the gory details). Or for Zee Lifestyle to present the cricketers as gladiators with a Roman arena for a backdrop. Or for Star Lifestyle News to run an sms poll on whom the readers think Preity Zinta should plump for in the film "Jaaneman": Salman Khan or Akshay Kumar? None of the above would then seem quite so bizarre.
New methods
Playing alongside the great news transformation is the debate over sting journalism, newly revived by the U.P. legislature's summons to Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN. Stings are in fact part of the news transformation, turning journalists into investigators armed with the tools and ethics of the modern detective trade.
How would you have nailed a minister abetting drug runners in the old days, the TV expose that has irked the U.P. assembly? By despatching a reporter to crack the story and take photographs where possible. Naming names would still have resulted in a furore in the assembly, including charges of a breach of privilege. Arun Shourie notched up a notice a year in the Rajya Sabha in 1981 and 1982 for such breach. He did not use entrapment. He used files and photographs to nail ministers at the Centre or State.
Don't be fooled by Tarun Tejpal's gush in the Hindustan Times: "For the first time in decades, there has appeared an independent deterrent to wrongdoing in public. The sting." What entrapment does get you is that image of someone taking wads of notes, which can be played seamlessly over and over again to a bored middle class with attention deficit disorder. And ratings to show the advertiser. Ask Rajat Sharma, who used stings to establish a channel nobody had heard of and who gleefully admits as much today.
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