TV JOURNALISM & NEVER ENDING DEBATES

Early 1980s had been one of the best times of growing up in India; there was only one TV channel which was telecasting some of the best sitcoms which could be watched by all as a family together.  The news both in Hindi and English had been staid affairs with no shouting matches.  The language news channels from the local stations also gave lots of information about the happenings in the state.  The advent of the NDTV as a content supplier to the national state sponsored television channel Doordarshan was a welcome whiff of fresh air.  The world this week program that was telecast every week and later the news digests were better in capturing the imagination of the public who were brought up on staid drone of news without any visuals or if visuals were there without any voice.  This gave rise to the independent television channels that sprang up in the immediate aftermath of liberalisation, like mushrooms in the fresh summer rain.

From telecasting from TV towers, the telecast of the programs went to space and were beamed down from the satellites.  The TV studios had undergone mega changes to reflect the new found popularity in the country.  There were outside broadcast vans with direct up link  to the satellite which were zooming across the cities to reach the place of any news-worthy incident. The anchors and the cameramen and women became famous in covering many incidents live. The terrorist attack on Mumbai, the Kargil war etc. were brought to the drawing rooms of many of the citizens who were glued to the televisions to know what is happening.  The sitcoms which were once a family drama that could be watched together as a family became never ending mega serials which created dissensions within the family. The gathering up in a house where there was a TV set,  to watch Buniyaad or Ramayana or Mahabharatha gave way to having a TV set in almost all house holds including places where there was no proper toilet facilities.  The watching of sitcom which were once a social gathering had divided the families and started creating tension and divisions within the family.  

In the last decade of last century many of the persons who earned their spurs in NDTV studios branched out to different channels becoming a cult figure in the new channels.  Some of these new TV journalists cultivated themselves in the images of Anderson Cooper, David Letterman and many other illustrious western television journalists whose names have become well known all over the world.  In the decade that followed in the new century, the debate became a regular affair in most of the TV channels.  The debates had degenerated into shouting matches between the participants and the anchor and among the participants as well.  One of the well known TV journalist started a program the Nation wants to know in which he was seen shouting into the microphone most of the time shutting the speakers down.  Another equally well known TV journalist embarked on a route of arousing the passions of the people around by instigating them and belittling the elected representatives holding high offices in the country. 

The TV debates that are aired for the last almost a decade and a half have a staple ingredient. If the debate is on cross border terrorism or firing from across the western border, infiltration or killing of terrorists from across the LOC on the western front, it is de rigueur to have some one from across the border from Pakistan as one of the panelist.  Almost all the TV stations in India have this malaise afflicting them to have one person from Pakistan in the panel.  The foreign minister of the enemy country had referred to the Indian Prime Minister as a terrorist and the Indians had elected a terrorist as PM of the country. With such brainwaves at the top most level of the political establishment of the neighbour it is less said the better about the persons who participate in the debates in Indian TV channels.  The belittling of the Indian army and its actions in containing the terrorist action from across the border are regularly voiced by these panelists in these debates whenever a person from across the border is called.  Why then the TV studios and the anchors go out of the way to placate these people inviting them to the debates. What is the use of their view point to the Indian public.  It beats the very foundation of the ethical journalism to call the representative of the enemy and give him a platform to air his/ her anti India views.  Is this not seditious enough to proceed against the TV channels and the anchors?  In a lighter vein, there are enough persons, both within the TV channels and outside,  within the country who peddle the views of the enemy and support their stand.