I saw the future of TV news... last week

I have been thinking — with 40-somethings fronting and/or launching television news channels, why not me? True, I have certain disadvantages. I have zero experience in broadcast news. I am a well-known “face” in the sense that, on the streets, only my dogs will instantly recognise me. Barring, say, Maoist leaders in Dandakarnya, few will envy my standards of personal grooming. But against all this, would-be media tycoons please note, I have one big plus: I have seen the future of television news, it was playing last week, and weeks before that, and, therefore, I am learning fast.

One important lesson concerns Mallika and Marxists. For easy-on-the-eye patriotism — a universally safe TV strategy — choose a great location and mix soldiers with matinee idols. If the star is Mallika Sherawat, as she was in NDTV’s Jai Jawan, there’s that extra thing that wasn’t there when Amir Khan stiffened soldierly resolve. Ms Sherawat was faultlessly thrilled through out the show. There is no reason to believe the soldiers didn’t have a good time. But in that laughter-filled tug-of-war that Ms Sherawat participated in, you could sense there were two invisible players, the institution of the army and the institution of journalism. Both were doing badly.

When you are in the TV news business though there simply isn’t any time to even notice such dyspeptic disapproval. You have a news-related chat show to run, and news isn’t helping you at all. Nothing much and no one is happening. Crisis? No. Call any of the following: A.B. Bardhan, D. Raja, Nilotpal Basu, Abani Roy; if you are feeling ambitious that day, try Sitaram Yechury. To any of them, pose the following questions, or variations of them — is the Left unhappy with the government; what has the Left got to say about its wish list being ignored; what will it do; what does it think of Manmohan Singh.

Poor Yechury had to “issue” the umpty-umpth “threat” to the Government on CNN-IBN’s chat show after a series of questions on extremely familiar subjects led to the by now well recognised point where the anchor asked the inevitable question. Messrs Bardhan, Raja and Roy are even better guests. They need fewer questions.

Please entertain yourself on dull days by testing out this hypothesis: the smaller the Left party, the readier its TV-happy leader is to say almost anything the show’s host wants him to. We now have, playing on TV, the strange spectacle of a political group trashing almost day in and day out a government they help survive everyday.

... contd.

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