The great TV bazaar

Freeze Frame

Quidnunc (noun): one who pretends to know all that is going on; a busybody. This quaint word of Latin origin sums up the ever increasing breed of men and women who read the news on our television screens. One is loathe to use the term newscasters for most of them.

Dolls, dudes, dumb heads and dolts mouthing gobbledygook, from Aaj Tak to 24x7. Non-stop prattle clouded in a clutter of images and deadened by sound bytes.

A host of wannabe Walter Cronkites and Barbara Walters interviewing tired studio hoppers tirelessly. All juxtaposed in between tawdry commercials and tedious promos. Welcome to the great Indian TV news bazaar!

Mediocrity is a trait most commonly shared by all Indians but not many have the audacity to flaunt it. Perhaps this would not be a problem if there were not an abundance of it.

Now that we have over 20 dedicated news channels beaming into our bedrooms, CAS notwithstanding, the most reluctant of channel surfers do get an eyeful (and earful) of daily news.

After all, in the knowledge economy information is a currency we all need. TV news ensures your five minutes of notoriety even as it gives couch potatoes their daily fix. No wonder it is a multi-billion dollar business worldwide.

In a country like India with its low literacy levels, TV has become the great purveyor of news for hoi polloi and cognoscenti alike. Unlike the print medium, which presupposes literacy, the electronic medium is dependent on images and sound and presentation.

This translates into awesome power not only for the medium but also for the messenger. The message is damned. Here lies the first conundrum.The ruling elite from the worlds of business, politics, arts, showbiz and media all want their share of voice to retain their hierarchical order.

For this, they are all too eager to studio hop and get in the picture somehow so that their constituents are kept aware of their work and wisdom.

As I have mentioned earlier in these columns, we are living in the 'attention age' and every product or person (interestingly interchangeable!) must be noticed to exist. So all become willing victual for newshounds.

In fact, the reason news television attracts advertising disproportionate to its viewership is because of the eagerness of people to be seen as newsmakers.This anxiety often translates into a hidden subsidy for many news channels.

The news channels create the second conundrum themselves. While there is something happening somewhere all the time, the truth is little of any consequence is happening anywhere anytime.

Where news is needed by the half hour, the only way a news channel can survive is to keep on creating news, usually out of non-news. This is expensive and TV is a hungry animal.

The easy way to kill its appetite is to get a ringside view of anything "� wars, celebrations, weddings, funerals, accidents, premieres, agitations, concerts, games, Parliament, riots and parties "� and report live.

So from ball by ball commentary of a cricket match, we now have a blow-by-blow account of a terrorist attack! When this is not possible there is an even easier way out.

All you need are a few talking heads sitting around a table and pontificating. There is no dearth of such wisdom droppers and quote hangers.

From the geriatric to the peripatetic, from the ridiculous to the sublime, the verbose rise above all socio-economic segmentation. This massification is the bane of today's TV news.

Now that it almost certain that broadcast news will remain an all-pervasive part of the 21st century life, why don't we do something to improve it?

I have always believed that we have the talent and technology to compete with the best in the business anywhere. What is missing is the will to innovate. Like Indian films, Indian news channels too are largely imitative and derivative.

In fact, over the years whatever ingenuity existed has been lost. Some of the earlier work done by Prannoy Roy, Vinod Dua, Raghav Behl and the late S P Singh is far superior to what is being churned out today.

The sets are better looking and the newsreaders are better dressed. There are better graphics and design "� and that's where the progress stalls. There is a general flippancy and mawkishness in both style and substance.

The Star News and Headlines Today teenybopper brigade is embarrassingly implausible. Aaj Tak and and Zee tend to sensationalise the trivial and NDTV is constantly belligerent and patronising.

Many good newscasters (yes, a few of the species do exist) are fast losing their skills and sheen. Many are merely busy looking good.

One does not grudge star status to the deserving but that stardom should not become a burden on the person's talent or drive and overpower viewers. What newscasters must remember is that empathy with the subject wins maximum viewership.

Multi-hued eye shadow and vacuous smiles hardly add credibility to a newscast. I am not suggesting that newscasters should look gruff or shabby or for that matter their demenour be deadpan or dour.

Yet too much of piffle fills our news space. A page 3 has a place in a newspaper as long as it is merely a page. When the whole newspaper takes that tone it becomes a rag.

Similarly, a TV news channel loses its credibility when it starts trivialising news or newsifying trivia constantly. A certain amount of irreverence is most healthy but an overdose of spice means indigestion.

More importantly, when both newsmakers and newscasters start taking themselves too seriously or the viewer for granted, it's switch-off time.

We have a great opportunity in time to actually be a part of a vibrant democracy slowly rediscovering itself (with warts and all) and news channels can be the conduits of this process. But this calls for a little introspection, some imagination and gravitas and gambol in equal measure!

(Amit Khanna is chairman of Reliance Entertainment. The views expressed here are his own)