“This is Sunidhi reporting! It’s Dr Prannoy Roy. He just got down from his Merc close to Khan Market. I can’t believe my luck. The aging ‘Father of Indian television’ is still so handsome! He has started walking towards Khan Market. Prannoy’s car is driving past the market. Wait! What do I see? A sweet little thing wearing a scarf and goggles has just got down around 100 metres past the market, crossed over to the other side, and is now walking back. My God! Wait till you hear this! The curvaceious beauty waved to Prannoy who is already there waiting for her. They have gone inside. This is exciting stuff. A story is breaking right here! Over to you.”
Studio anchor: “It definitely is! Who is this mystery girl? Can you describe her to our viewers?”
Reporter:”It is already dark here and you know how the streetlights near Khan Market are!! She is wearing a pair of Levi‘s Jeans and a Versace blue top. She looks like the Delhi socialite who was seen with the Roys last New Year Party. I am not sure. It’s possible she could be the Bengali Bollywood heroine. Only she has the guts to wave from a distance in public.”
Studio anchor: “Keep a watch and get back if you see anything interesting.”
After a few hours…
“Sunidhi again from the Sheraton parking lot. They have just entered the coffee shop. Still I can’t make out who she is. She is wearing a cashmere shawl now. She also looks like Maharani Gayatri Devi’s grand daughter- I am not sure though.”
Studio anchor: “Get the dope on all the three girls and check them out. Must beat other channels and splash it at 9 pm headlines.”
Reporter:”Okay. Meanwhile you can go ahead and splash it along. You can interpose some of Dr. PR ‘s earlier shots with coffee shop pictures and run it.”
Studio anchor:”We are already on air with Breaking News. Get us juicy stuff and some close-up shots.”
***
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: How will this “juicy story” be if it is run, say on CNN-IBN and Times Now all day with headlines screaming ‘Father of Indian TV sowing wild oats’, interspersed with shots of his residence and family?
How will it sound if Vinod Mehta, Suhel Seth and Ramachandra Guha sit around in their Sunday best discussing it threadbare with Rajdeep Sardesai in ’Face the Nation’?
Will Roy & Co at least now understand how Rajesh Talwar and family felt when supposedly juicy details of the Aarushi-Hemraj murder were tapped by every half hour, for days and nights on end, with a scurrilous mixture of news, innuendo and insinuation?
Prannoy Roy’s name here is only for effect, and no offence is meant. Change it to Rajdeep Sardesai and run it on NDTV and Headlines Today. Or change it to Arnab Goswami walk and splash it on NDTV and Zee TV. The basic thrust of this fictitious story remains the same.
How will Radhika Roy or Sagarika Ghose feel if their husbands are tailed and ‘Breaking News’ stories made up and splashed in a hurry? Real and mostly imaginary tidbits discussed by a ‘panel of studio experts’?
Get the picture, gentlemen?
That is what is happening every hour by the hour for days and weeks at a stretch on Indian TV channels. You wear your TRPs on your sleeve and to get the magic numbers a combination of sex, sleaze, innuendo, trespassing, concoction is being whipped up.
When you are caught in the act of hurting innocent citizens, there’s not even an apology. There is just more discussion when the buck is passed on to the police bungling the case.
Is this journalism?
Why are the most prominent TV journalists in the country involved mostly in scoops and sensation-mongering? Have our TV whiz kids not heard of Darfur and Zimbabwe? Why are we always talking cinema, cricket and crime?
Can’t they come out with a couple of solutions for the Kashmir problem or the Maoist problem to solve it once and for all? Can’t they take up weightier issues of inflation and price rise that is affecting the common man? Etcetera.
Indian television are mostly busy with froth-in–mouth journalism chasing stars while the ordinary people are facing destiny’s cruel fate. Hunting has become a vicarious national game transgressing all borders of decency.
How would it be if the channel heads were the Hunted instead of being the Hunter? If their family members were hounded everywhere and life made impossible for them to live?
***
The real story behind the juicy story:
When the rookie correspondent finally got the juicy stuff, it wasn’t even overnight sadaa hua dal. Prannoy Roy was going to Khan Market to buy some household stuff. The new slipper of his cousin, , who was with him, was rubbing against her toe-nail causing discomfort and she drove past to see if it could be mended temporarily. Unfortunately the mochi who sits near Khan Market had packed off for the day and she walked back to Khan Market to meet Prannoy! They went to coffee shop for a bite. End of story.
Also read: Should the media apologise?
Tags: Aarushi-Hemraj, Arnab Goswami, Churumuri, CNN-IBN, Khan Market, Maharani Gayatri Devi, NDTV, Noida Double Murder, Prannoy Roy, Radhika Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose, Sans Serif, Sheraton, Times Now
17 July 2008 at 7:06 pm
*** “Why are we talking about Cinema, Cricket, Crime?” *** God, is there anything else to talk about in Indian TVs? The first Test between the mighty India and SL is a week away but already haven’t we heard trillion bytes about it?
17 July 2008 at 7:32 pm
All the prominent english journalists in the country are foreign educated and are deeply influenced by foreign media. Everybody knows how hard they try to ape the BBC or other foreign channels come what may (starting from the red colour and almost similar music…). That is the problem, as countries like the US and the UK are developed, there is time for show business. Unfortunately we don’t have the time. We need more focussed journalism on basic development issues. At the moment there are just a few token ones which are enough to bring them the awards. Its a shame. Companies like NDTV and GBN are now listed companies. So, in effect, they also have the public which has invested in them. Its high time they give the public the true and complete story of the country.
17 July 2008 at 10:09 pm
PRannoy Roy – I dont want your 24×7. Give me back the World this week.
17 July 2008 at 10:48 pm
Why only NDTV is being targetted!! CNN-IBN is no better!
uh.. Selective amnesia.
If all these TV journos had any morality they should apologise
17 July 2008 at 11:25 pm
Rather big explanation that spoils the moral of the story.
18 July 2008 at 9:14 am
Last week when someone asked Arnab whether he did anything for TRP’s he looked so hurt and aghast… poor guy…
18 July 2008 at 12:05 pm
Damn right you are. Mere apology wont suffix. The Sec- Soc MSM (Main Stream Media) must be hauled up. These guys behaved like ‘vultures’.
MSM has crossed all its limits in pursuit of trps.
I will support with all my resources if Talwars take the media to court and make them pay through their bloody noses. I urge Talwars to do this please, If not for Arushi’s soul alone but for a larger cause to put ‘stinkingly intrusive, shamelessly arrogant and amorally preaching’ Media to its place.
Prudent Indian
19 July 2008 at 11:31 am
Every channel, newspaper and magazine should devote space and time for a slot called “Creative solutions to pressing problems of the people
In this slot, seasoned journalists can actually use their writing to give ideas that help development, give out of the box solutions for urgent issues, instead of churning out stories that end up making each one us a voyeur.
Course there is space for pulp news. But pulp cannot appear on page 1. Pulp has to be confined to where it is. Page 3.
22 July 2008 at 10:36 am
First, the praise, for a most wonderful imagination. The story and the thoughts behind it are indeed food for more thoughts on the subject. However there are a few questions that need be answered now. What would you rather watch, the sterile news of the good old (as some would now say) DD days or the lively news that you can see on any of the innumerable TV news channels that we see today?
Like with everything there is good and there is bad. The same media, when it uncovers unproven scams and murders usig the same techniques, is hailed by all. Now that the story has gone horribly wrong everyone says apologise. We media men are largely driven by our stories, the only maxim we follow is “The story, must be told”. Do you think we enjoy thrusting a camera or a recorder into the face of people who have lost their loved ones? How many journalists do you know who cover conflicts and are not affected by the fact that they must continually choose between reporting and helping the people involved? Admittedly there are those among us who live to tell the tale only to get that promotion but for each one of those there are hundreds of us who tell the tale so that YOU do not go to bed each night lulled into a false sense of security that nothing can happen to you. If you chose to disagree I suggest you dig up the number of scams, murder plots that the media helped uncover in the past ten years and compare it to the cases of sensationalism against it during the same period. Perhaps the numbers will give you the correct idea.
24 July 2008 at 5:45 pm
The media are like the commies were till a few days back: all power, no responsibility. That is why, some of them believe that they are beyond question. The commies are out in the cold now. A similar fate will never befall the media. Because you and I are always ‘voting’ for them in real time as they are trying to attract us similarly. And the competition is tough. And there is a lot of money involved.