At the end of Wednesday, we felt a little like Ishant Sharma: overwhelmed. He, by being a near-crorepati at 19; we, by 19 hours of coverage. Did nothing happen to the billion plus other Indians that could have made a headline or two?

The next day, CNN-IBN was the first to question the sale’s largesse. Thursday night, anchor Sagarika Ghose launched a provocative and lively debate on whether Vijay Mallya & Co. didn’t think they could have spared a few crores for India’s poor while they were in this generous mood. And while Mallya gave a very good account of himself — looking every bit the part of a profit Samaritan — we had to cut away to Messrs Sharif and Zardari who chose that moment to hold a press conference on their future and Pakistan’s.

This was an equally fascinating television moment, not because of their historic agreement, not because of what they said or didn’t say but because many of us couldn’t hear what they had to say. While CNN-IBN and Times Now broke with regular programming for the PC, NDTV 24x7 stayed with the money game called cricket. Hindi news channels follow their own nose for news: Aaj Tak was busy sniffing around Mahabharat. A good half an hour later, it was sniffing out criminals on Vardaat, so was Star News on Sansani. Odd, given that they’re always breaking news that has about as much news value as yesterday’s headlines.

Such excesses, omissions and commissions occur rather too frequently. We suggest TV channels visit a stationary shop and purchase a good old fashioned ruler: yes, to rap themselves on the knuckles and to provide a measured scale of things to their coverage.

... contd.