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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

"How TV news is distorting India's media"

This is a 2006 post by a BBC South Asia bureau editor, but some of the points he is making are still valid.
  • If you go to the end, you will see he has a dig at himself too.
I asked Ayesha Tabassum (Class of 2007), who is a producer with Times Now in Mumbai, to comment on this piece. Here's her feedback:
It's a fair picture he has given about the current situation in television news. But certain points seem to be exaggerated...

LIKE THIS ONE:

The former Home Minister Indrajit Gupta was one day doggedly pursued by a young journalist on his way out of parliament.

When he finally agreed to stop for the news crew, he was asked the probing question. "Sir, would you please say something". The second question was "and Sir, who are you?"

No channel would send out a reporter who is ignorant about the basic facts... even if you are not active on the field you cannot afford to ignore basic facts and information about your government and ministers or any other topic under the sun. Google is always out there to help you out (Wikipedia is not always reliable, though).

BUT THIS ONE:

One young woman described herself in the opening line of her CV to my office as being "young and vivacious".

HAPPENS WAY TOO OFTEN

Particularly at Hindi news channel offices (sorry to sound biased but, trust me, it happens most of the times).

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