Breaking News

Many years ago, when we had only the radio, those jumbo-sized wooden cases, News was a twice or thrice a day affair that started and ended with the trademark bip.. bip.. beeeeep, prompting sometimes my dad to set his wrist-watch. The ten minute broadcast included some humdrum political news, some international news, and finally some sports news. The one thing that I liked about news then was the deep-bass male voices of news-readers like Devaki Nandan Pandey and Ramanuj Prasad Singh, speaking in crisp, refreshing Hindi. Even when television arrived, there were no dedicated 24x7 news channels. The quintessential Salma Sultan presented the news every evening on DD without much fanfare, but I always waited for her to smile ever so lightly while signing off. Among the men, I liked the macho Tajeshwar Singh, who read the news in English. Then, Aaj Tak set the precedent of private news channels and now we have 24x7 news channels by the dozen.

These days there are more news channels than there is news. And since TRP is of more importance than the quality of content, the channels have started telecasting anything that can attract the interest of viewers- from crimes like petty burglary, murder and rape, to freak accidents like a child in a bore-well- all in the name of ‘news’. Such news items run all day long, repeatedly; the same content in every channel, each one of them claiming the news to be its exclusive! When the channels get sensational issues like the recent Ramdev-governament spat, they spare us the trivialities. But when there is no major news for the day, not even the petty ones, they resort to showing us clips from comic and family-drama TV serials. ‘Breaking news’, once supposed to alert the viewer of a major recent happening, can now mean anything from triplets being born to Farah Khan to rumors of Kareena breaking up with Saif. Some news channels have dedicated shows for major criminal events of the week- Sansani and wardaat being a couple of them, anchored by dreadful-looking anchors speaking loudly and theatrically, scaring small children in homes. Curiously, such shows are a big hit what with the public having turned sadistic and voyeuristic- we derive thrill from watching real-life criminal happenings- as long as they don’t happen to us.

The advantage of news arriving at the speed of light notwithstanding, I don’t know if such news channels are helping us in any way or not. Even when there was no TV, we all were fairly well-informed on current affairs, thanks to the metered dose of the news three times a day on the All India Radio, and of course with some help from the newspapers.