Star News was gravely wondering just what the incident told us in view of Mumbai terror attacks and the consequent upgrade in security awareness. Aaj Tak — screen split in three windows, of course — was worried about the effectiveness of the SPG, the elite force armed to the teeth and tasked with guarding VVIPs. Flicking channels, I noticed that CNN-IBN hadn’t switched from its pre-scheduled programme; only the ticker was exercised about the security breach at the PM’s house. I can’t remember what the programme was about but it was magnificent by virtue of the simple fact that it was something different.

India TV, surprisingly, was hunting Jaswant Singh’s mole at that time. Frankly that was disappointing. I would have loved to see India TV’s take on a “luxury car”, two airhostesses and the PM’s security.

It was NDTV, though, that stopped me cold. Before Thursday evening, if an SPG officer had put a gun to my head and asked me to name the TV channel least prone to excitability, I would have hemmed and hawed and then said NDTV. Asked the same question now and under similar circumstances, I would probably be risking the same fate NDTV journalists speculated might have befallen the three “intruders”.

Yes they were, as NDTV said with unnerving regularity, in a “protected zone”. May be shoot at sight orders apply in that area, although the PMO’s press release seemed to indicate otherwise. Of course, some cops forgot their basics. But none of this demanded the peculiar combination of funereal seriousness and gleeful moralising I saw on NDTV.

The girls were interrogated with a sternness rarely seen when TV journalists interview politicians. They were asked whether their parents knew where they were, they were asked whether they were aware of the grave transgression they had committed, they were asked whether they had thought of getting a lawyer. And when NDTV was taking a break from airing these “exclusive” interviews, its correspondent was keeping the tempo up with his sheer indignation. I changed channels when NDTV got an ex-IB director to discuss the threat to the PM’s security.

And I saw that almost every major channel, like NDTV, couldn’t get enough of the girls blowing kisses and almost all camerapersons had decided that the protagonists deserved a head-to-toe slow pan.

I don’t know many things. But I know tabloid TV when I see it.