It was only after watching a bit of India TV’s coverage of the news story on the Bollywood actor and alleged sexual assault that I began to appreciate something I had heard earlier on news TV this week: the news anchor on CNN-IBN’s evening prime time bulletin, discussing the same story, repeatedly and emphatically making a point about ‘our inner demons’ and ‘our dark side’. Bollywood actors have inner demons and a dark side, the anchor and the guest agreed, and so do all of us. Yes. And when you watch India TV, even a bit of it, covering a story like this you know exactly where our inner demons and our dark side can lead us. But I don’t want to be unfair to CNN-IBN. Those observations would have been notable even without India TV’s unwitting aid to your correspondent. A two minute anchor-guest chat on humanity’s hidden unwholesome impulses in the course of an evening news bulletin is one of those things that make news TV what it is: full of surprises. One minute you are hearing chatter about BJP’s inner problems, the next minute it’s our inner demons.

Bengal’s, as it were, outer demons and its dark side deservedly got hours of news TV attention. Something was missing. CPM and Trinamul TV talking heads got away relatively lightly in their encounters with studio anchors of NDTV, CNN-IBN, Times Now. Saugata Ray’s start as a regular on the talk TV circuit should have seen him tested more. Sitaram Yechury and Nilotpal Basu never looked discomfited. Dinesh Trivedi put Times Now’s news anchor on the backfoot. This was not just because TV guests like Yechury are smart and experienced enough to dodge tough questions. It was primarily because there weren’t that many tough well-informed questions.

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