The strains of a piano take over with what sounds suspiciously like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

And so it continues right until the murder.

Star News has a vivid imagination. In its hands a murder became a one-hour tawdry, tabloid tale. Our objection is not that it recreated the crime, but that it did it so in such an ugly fashion. If you must recreate, do so with newspaper clippings and photographs from the time, interspersed with interviews with those who were involved in the investigation or were close to those involved. Discovery Channel does that. Don’t use people pretending to be actors pretending to act like real people in situations that don’t look real at all.

Above, all, if you must imagine history, do so like Jodhaa Akbar. In which case, make a film.

So we say to News 24: make or break news, don’t make it up.

shailaja.bajpai@expressindia.com