No Brainer perspective – State of news channels!

By NIS

I remember there was a time when the parents used to tell or rather force their children to watch news regularly for two reasons. One was to get command on language (esp. English) and other was to be aware of what’s happening around the world.

I wonder if the parents in the current generation are saying exactly the opposite to their children. I don’t think many parents would like their children to know that there is a monkey called ‘chatori bandariya’ in some part of our country who can delightfully eat ‘golgappas’ or if they would like their children to know how the UFO’s are sucking in cattles from planet earth with pathetic visual illustrations running in the background. One of the news channel drove me nuts when it was trying to explain how to make UFO’s in your backyard. They probably would have forgotten that ‘U’ in UFO stands for ‘Unidentified’. How can you teach someone to make something that is unidentified and challenged scientifically by majority? Needless to say, the scientific reasoning provided is far from being convincing.

Sometimes, it becomes really hilarious. Recently when one of our pugilist did well in Olympics and assured himself a medal, a news channel got four boxers in their studio, got a special effect as if they are standing in a boxing ring. The expert (on whose credentials I would not like not comment) ACTUALLY got them fighting in the studio to explain the techniques used by our successful boxer in the Olympics. You have the actual footage of the bout, so explain the viewers the techniques through that footage by freezing, slow motion and using pointers. To get four boxers or rather four people in boxing gear was like taking it to the extreme. I am sure many of us would have really loved it.

Others represent the darker side, where in how two lovers committed suicide. How was a woman beaten up in a village where she was condemned to be a witch? Shocking is that they get videos of such incidents. I understand all these journalists, reporters are educated human beings who believe in fairness and social justice. Why could not someone of such merit inform the police or help the poor women while they were shooting the video? I don’t know even an iota of journalism but even if I had known I would have struggled to find answer to this.

I don’t think there is anything wrong in sensationalizing the news. We should also consider the fact there is very intense competition in which every channel claims to be the number one. They need to be innovative in their quest to increase their viewership ratings, but I do expect that they also realize the fact that they represent the most successful form of electronic media that touches millions of people both domestically and internationally and hence be responsible.

Now how can I ask my 10 year old niece to sit and watch some news? Ask her to listen how every word is pronounced as the news reading skills have gone down significantly. Ask her to be up to date with the current affairs as they are just crowded out and all that you see on these channels are the news items from which I would like her to be away.

I don’t know whom to blame? Is it the news channel or us that we really watch all this stuff and signal the news channel that eventually they have been able to increase their ratings?