DEADLY VIRUS CALLED TV NEWS

Bikram Vohra Consulting Editor bikram@asianlite.com It’s scary. There is an alternative government in India. It’s called the TV News and it has a Prime Minister called Arnab Goswami who is the chief anchor and a cabinet of clones who each try to outdo him in various languages. This lot spends hours a day stunning the public into submission by being obnoxious, impolite, breaking ever rule of journalism, aggressive, imperious, loud and hostile. There is an overwhelming “I” factor and they now style themselves as saviours of the nation. The sheer breathtaking meanness makes for riveting viewing till you realise you are being conned and it is all table thump­ing theatrics. The sad part is they actually come up with good subjects that are then wrecked by a tsunami of babble so that by the end of the show there is no concept left of the original issue, simply white noise. NRIs are gradually discovering these visual pundits on their feed but are not yet wholesale fans. In recent times their power to create public opinion has been recharged what with the political developments. In fact American TV has egun lampooning the shrill texture of the Indian ‘Foxes’ as they are being termed. The scenario is much the same. You get 8 tame individuals desperate to be on TV, put them into pigeonholes and then you whiplash them mercilessly with idiomatic bombardment...I don’t give two hoots about you, Sir, answer my question, yes or no, sorry you had your turn, this is disgraceful...just an endless barrage of attack. The trick is no one is allowed to finish their argument and every answer can be mocked without factual corroboration. It is a smirk how. On a dozen channels. In different languages. The non English ones are even more virulent. This bizarre entertainment has many takers because there is this verbal illusion that these anchors are bringing up hitherto hidden issues and airing them. True, but where they could be doing good they are turning everything into frenetic entertainment. The issue becomes secondary to the screaming match. And these anchors are neither culpable nor accountable, they can say what they want without consequences and you wonder why people volunteer to be the pigeons in the coop ready to be defeathered. From my brief exposure to these shows they are more part of the problem and not the solution. They hold the matchstick to the dry tinderbox that is India today and they can ignite it with their malice. Doesn’t anybody else see that? (Bikram Vohra has been editor of Gulf News, Khaleej Times, Bahrain Tribune, Emirates Evening Post and helped in setting up Gulf Today.)