Anchor away

Reminded you of Zee’s Gudiya Inquisition. That poor girl was ringed in on television by ulemas and her village panchayat, forced during a live broadcast by the won’t-take-no-for answer anchor, to choose between two husbands. Here Mr Smug HT declared that since Chiranjeevi’s family had provided all the right Confidence Building Measures (with anchor’s help of course), this story had a happy ending — despite Srija and Shirish and Pinky’s reservations. Very poor behaviour, very bad television.

In contrast, Tehelka-Aaj Tak-Headlines Today’s sting on the Gujarat riots was spot on. Those caught on camera were scornfully boastful of their (mis)deeds; the more gruesome the crime the more boastful they became. Correspondent Ashish Khetan said they displayed “no remorse”. The crimes have been not merely been acknowledged, they have been graphically depicted on camera: you could paint pictures with the blood that dripped from those tongues (sorry for the language). This was not a sting without bite: there was no room for (mis)understanding what was said by Babu Bajrangi, Madan Dhanraj Chawal, Arvind Pandya, etc.

Interesting that the sting was on Aaj Tak, instead of an English news channel. Aaj Tak made the telecast accessible to millions more and the sting enjoyed an acceptability it might not have on English ‘secular’ bleeding heart types. Unfortunately, the impact was diluted by lengthy commercial breaks — sometimes above 10 minutes. Lesson? Don’t mix underpants with murder.

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