NEWS GOES CRAZY

High Drama Hindi news channels have transformed news by making it hysterical. They are broadcasting events that used to be considered unworthy of reporting, and they are covering them in ways that are dramatic and comical but very honestly Indian. Meenakshi Sinha reports the old-fashioned way.Without a mike

You don’t have to be famous and dead anymore to be on TV for hours. Being plain ridiculous will do. Like Gajraj from Barauli village who claimed that he met Yamraj, the traditionally deepthroated god of death. Gajraj not only remembered having Coke and popcorn on his way to meeting Yamraj, but also recalled seeing the god seated on a buffalo and flaunting a big moustache. “There was too much light against a white backdrop where he sat,” he narrated on national television. Gajraj even remembered Yamraj’s enquiry committee suddenly realising that they had got the wrong man. In fact, he clearly recollected how Yamraj reprimanded his attendant, “Ullu ke pathey, yeh kisko utha layey ho.” Thus Gajraj returned to Earth and thus he lived to tell this tale on Aaj Tak — Sabze Tez. A panel discussion followed in the studio where expertsand a psychiatrist discussed death, previous birth and other related matters.
That Gajraj’s story was carried for over two hours on national television is only another pointer to the way language news channels have altered the definition of news, and in the process, transformed their own fortunes. These channels are almost always showing that curious thing called, ‘exclusive’. It must be their high journalistic standards that prevent them from calling their weather reports, ‘breaking news’. In their quest for maximum viewership, language news channels may appear shrill and hilariously dramatic but it has to be said that they have contributed the first real innovation in Indian cable. Somewhere along their evolution, they stopped pretending that news is a transaction between one serious man and another. They left the geriatrics of Indian politics that not many really cared about, and scoured the streets of middle India to find entertaining stories that best reflected the realities of this country.

Englishnews channels are suddenly looking like Nirad C Chaudhary. Their Hindi rivals are running away with huge advertising revenues by airing live stories like those of Gajraj and Kuni Lal from Madhya Pradesh who predicted his own death (wrongly, it transpired). As the time of his foretold death neared, reporters went into a frenzy, cameras zoomed on to a frail man sitting with his hands folded inside a temple. They even got his wife's poignant quote, “inko toh pehle se he malum tha kab jayengey”. When he survived the death he had himself portended, those experts who seem to have a lot of spare time discussed through studio panels, the apparent science behind astrological predictions. A little girl who claimed to recount her past life too was given excellent treatment on prime time. In the name of reality TV, a news channel let an anchor cover her own wedding. She wielded the mike in between her mehndi and other ceremonies. The camera followed her on the customary arrival at the husband’s home, but prudently stopped short of covering the first night. The English-speaking, almost refined types of this country, may raise their eyebrows in disdain at all that is going on in what are called ‘language channels’, but the truth is that it’s when such stories hit the air that the news finds soaring ratings, clearly exposing what the majority actually wants. “If certain programmes affect people by large, I don’t see any reason why we should not air them,” says Raju Santhan, editor, Zee News. Forever gone are the days when news telecast entailed ribbon-cutting by ministers, inaugurating a bridge or a portrait of a political leader followed by insufferable speeches. “Though the format was handed to us by DD, is that news?” questions Uday Shankar, CEO and editor, Star News, who had earlier launched the first 24-hour news channel Aaj Tak five years ago, and made a success out of it. Shankar readily admits that the distinction between entertainment and news is blurring. “Newspapers have the advantage of separate pullouts like the lifestyle, food, travel and entertainment supplements. In TV, it’s a linear progression.” Therefore there’s a method to the madness. Stories of human interest, a celebrity caught in a controversy, sadhus and their unholy escapades, flesh trade in the name of massage parlours, a couple in love and on the run against family pressure are all forms of news which have little or nothing to do with what’s traditionally called, ‘national interest’. But this is the type of news that is broadening the base of news channels. These days, it’s not just grim unhappy fathers who watch news as the heavy dinner is being digested. Now, everybody watches news. Especially women who by far matter more to most of those companies with huge ad budgets. In the past two years, average news viewing share increased to roughly 55 minutes in 24 hours. Television news advertising revenues are over Rs 500 crore a year, and growing. Shankar calls the current state of Hindi news channels experimentation. Many would even say that it is a successful experimentation. But other television journalists who have largely resisted the temptation of bringing the circus into the studio are not so kind in their analyses. Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN, says: “Ultimately credibility of the news channel will be the final calling. A Kunji Lal story or a previous birth episode may get one the TRPs for a few days, but people will eventually flock to channels which showcase credible news.” Sreenivasan Jain, resident editor, NDTV 24x7, Mumbai, says that fierce competition among news channels has produced, “a kind of lawlessness”. He complains that when one channel lowers the bar, “everybody jumps the gun. We have to resist the urge to stoop to the lowest common denominator. But I feel that there are people even in those (Hindi) channels who feel uncomfortable with such stories, because we are all journalists atthe end of the day”. The battle between the artiste and the baniya is as old as the battle between good and evil itself, with exactly the same promise that the war will continue till the end of time. While journalistic standards is a readily granted virtue like morality, though nobody is fully sure what the two are, the compulsion of Hindi news channels to worship drama is easy to understand. The day Star News aired the story of some youth in a Faridabad ashram, it dislodged Aaj Tak as the market leader. The story was about young men and women who were holed up in the ashram against the wishes of their families. Star News went live from the temple gates showing some kind of a guru, his rebellious disciples and their families caught in a war of words. These days, when a bomb explodes or a mob wife is interviewed, news channels bag 18-19% of satellite viewership. According to Shankar, a layman is primarily interested in his routine and not national or regional politics. “Why should we cover Laloo who lied his way through? Besides, how many people’s lives are affected by political news?” The policy for broadcast news is simple — ‘Compelling TV’ is the new phrase coined in newsrooms across channels. The story, packaging or the visuals have to be attentiongrabbing and simply compelling. “The viewer, whether on the channel by appointment or by mere surfing, must be compelled to stop and absorb,” says Siddhartha Gupta, director, Channel 7. In this milieu, it is easy to understand the lure of crime news. Across all channels, crime journalists are becoming the news brahmins of television. At the top of the heap is Sansani, a hysterical crime bulletin anchored appropriately by Shrivardhan Trivedi, a man with theatre background, who gives a daily account of the latest crime from across the country. One may have many opinions about Mr Trivedi, but when he is screaming at the camera, it’s difficult to change the channel. And that, news channels say, is exactly what they want more than the fair play awards.