Saturday, September 11, 2010

Floods of Fools

Pick up the remote and watch any hindi news channel PRONTO! If you happen to read this within 2 weeks of my having written it, then you may be one of the lucky viewers to get a glimpse of sensational journalism at its extreme sense!! (I'm guessing 2 weeks is as fas as they'll take the news...but it may take longer, you never know)

The Yamuna is flooding Delhi, and all low lying areas are being evacuated. While this is grim news for the villages and the little shanky-towns lying by the underbelly of Delhi, the rest of the city is being shown this piece of news as a farce. How? Well, a Hindi news channel showed a reporter (IN THE STUDIO) drowning in 3 feet deep water (IN THE STUDIO) as she was broadcasting the news (IN THE STUDIO).

Why do I keep emphasizing IN THE STUDIO? Because this entire Cartoon Network meets Titanic coverage of the floods was done with special effects as bright blue water kept flowing over the reporter who seemed high and dry. I cannot even begin to think about the IQ of people who concocted this evil plan to thwart decent and dignified reporting. James Cameron did a better job with the water and a ship, if you ask me. At least they could've got the colour of the Yamuna right (and this isn't a slur against its dirt...which it ought to be sometime...but all rivers are murky brown). Bright blue Yamuna? Is it just one big mirror reflecting the sky's colour? (Not that the sky is blue these days, either)

So catch it if you can, and you will be, like me, one of the many millions who fell for the gimmick and increased their TRPs. Increased TRPs would mean more ludicrous productions of news. To quote two very wise radio jockeys (who are my companions on my morning drives) "If the News people would like to see the floods recede and the traffic subside, then they would do well to uhm... remove their gigantic vans and equipment from the bridge they stand on. They end up blocking effective movement of daily life and hoping against hope that the water rises by 0.01 mts so they can IMMEDIATELY BROADCAST IT LIVE FROM THE FLOODING VENUE."

Think about the people who once lived there. Of the houses that now need to be re-built because of the floods, of the Marks cards that have been washed away, the clothes that have begun to decay and the food that can now never be eaten. The homes that will now bear a coat of the Yamuna, once she resides. Think about them now, before you switch on that news channel. Chances are that once you switch the channel on, you'll lose the capacity to think.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yea well... thats nothing new... News channels will make 'Exclusive news feed' out of Sonia Gandhi burping if they think they can get away with it!!!!

Which channel was this??? India Tv or Aajtak?? Both are equally capable of doing this!! :-X

And yes....I do Love the two radio samaritans u mentioned... :)

Mausam mausi...ohhooooo..... Dilli ki mausii.... ohhhooooooo....mausam mausi!!! ;)

Vaishnavi said...

It was India TV, I think. You know, when you left the comment a couple of days back, I didn't know.....and then yesterday while channel surfing, I came across India TV where this anchor was standing on a....MANHOLE. Like a special effects one in the studio.

That pretty much clinched it. An anchor who stands on a manhole definitely belongs to the same channel as another anchor who swims in chest deep *blue* pretend water.


Or maybe they all show stuff like this.....Cartoon Network must be getting an inferiority complex!