Breaking News and Sensational News

Its been exactly one month since i last blogged at blogspot. I even have a tag pending (courtesy consultant warikoo!) on top of my writing that is due! Some useful office work and basketball matches that got my company a runners up trophy in a corporate tournament took away my time during the last one month. The brouhaha about DoT and ISPs blocking sites also helped fuel the blogging escapism - Sometimes you juss want a bakra to blame on, eventhough there are ways to get to the ends!. Blogspot is still not accessible to me at home, and hence its valuable office time that is being spent here - junta please note (my dedication, please see the positives alone ;-) )

We all know that breaking news in the various news channel hardly justify their name. Insipid, mundane news items are put as placeholders in the TV graphics though they could be avoided. This has kind of inspired news-channels to add "sensational news" during prime time.

Here's an example - this item was aired in prime time NDTV yesterday with none other than Dr Prannoy Roy hosting it. The story is about two village girls who come to Mumbai with 800 bucks, singing talent and hopes of becoming rich and famous!. The failure and desperation the girls feel while realizing they are far far away from their dreams leads them to attempt suicide. Fortunately they are saved by the local policemen, but the tragedy is that their father dies of a heart attack when he hears about the doings of his children. The story is narrated in the background, and interspersed is the interview with these girls who describe their experiences at strange city Mumbai, away from home! The recordings dont show the sisters lament at the tragedy and i fear that they were not aware of it at the time the video was recorded. You really feel the punch when Prannoy says that line in the end - just to create the effect of a thriller - Now i tell you the secret types!

I believe this is a personal tragedy of that family and though we all share their sorrow, the news shouldnt have been aired at prime time along with items like the "Hizbullah vs Israel", "The mole at the PMO" etc which are the "conventional" news items for the day. I even doubt if the above incident had happened yesterday - the recordings gave me the impression that the feature had been casually recorded for filling any gaps in the routine programs. But with the plethora of news channels that are in competition and the need to fill in interesting items throughout the available 24x7 airtime is forcing channels like NDTV to get hot news items as fast as possible (anybody remember Rajdeep Sardesai literally bragging after being able to break the Mumbai blast news first to all of us after juss finishing his report?) or if not, compensate by getting more of this kind of sensational news.

Its time that a real professional news channel came into fore...