[Reader-list] How TV news stars won war

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

An interesting text from Suparna Sharma that was forwarded to me  
recently.



>
> How TV news stars won war
>
> By Suparna Sharma
>
> Asian Age, New Delhi
>
> Dec. 1: India's best-known television journalists appear to have
> finally beaten Ekta Kapoor in the battle for TRPs. In six days flat.
> The all-out war witnessed editors being paradropped, reporters lying
> prostrate on the ground when not blaring into the cameras, and a
> thousand "breaking stories" every day.
>
> Here's how the TRPs were garnered, shot by shot, starting around 10.30
> pm on Wednesday, November 26:
>
> Close in on the woman in tears — show her from every possible angle
> and deliver a soul-wrenching commentary of what might be going through
> her mind.
>
> Repeatedly flash shots of the adorable, crying child. Shove your mike
> in his face. Oh! hasn't learnt to talk yet, not even Yiddish? Ask the
> woman carrying the child how she rescued him from the carnage. Not
> maudlin enough? Ask how many dead bodies she saw, get a blood question
> in. Ask if she was scared, ask what she was thinking while bullets
> were being sprayed around.
>
> Download all background scores of Ramsay and his brothers —especially
> Khooni Shikanja, Vehshi Aatma and Shaitan Khopri — and play it every
> time (that is at least 25 times a minute) pictures of the terrorists
> are flashed.
>
> Catch a victim. Chase him. If it's a "her", then your channel's
> reputation depends on getting an arousing account of how she felt —
> when she saw the bodies, the terrorists, when she heard the screams.
> Feelings. And get her to tell viewers what she was feeling when she
> saw her best friend's body.
>
> Remember, all world-class reportage always begins with that one
> question: "How are you feeling?"
>
> But it wasn't just on borrowed ideas that the news channels competed
> for TRPs. The skills these news channels have been honing for a long
> time came in handy too. In order of priority:
>
> Flash "exclusive" — even if the reporter is sending in reports from
> outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, where at least 400 reporters are
> stationed. And for viewers gone blind while watching blood-curdling
> reportage, scream "exclusive" after every nine words.
>
> Forget that commandos are in the hotel trying to rescue innocent
> people. Scream into the mike and tell the world that you, and only
> you, have an "exclusive" bit of information from your source, now on
> the hotel's 19th floor.
>
> Get your reporters to lie down, ducking killer bullets, even as the
> cameraperson is standing next to him, recording histrionics.
>
> Ask anxious relatives if they think their friends and family members,
> who are still inside, will be able to walk out alive.
>
> To finally clinch the TRP race, many top television editors were
> paradropped and the story was turned around. It became all about them
> and their trauma. Barkha Dutt took viewers on a tour of the Taj Mahal
> Hotel, choked up and emotional, gesturing violently, shrugging,
> crouching, hand on her aching heart. Rajdeep Sardesai rescued a
> foreigner from other reporters, to ask, "How are you feeling?" Arnab
> Goswami, of course, was kept in the studio. No one shouts "breaking
> news" louder than him.
>
> When it was all over, after the commandos had gone home and the
> funerals had run their course, some passers-by were collected, handed
> candles, and in the glow of burning wax, victims were hugged,
> preferably Muslims, and asked again, for a final boost to TRPs: "How
> do you feel?"
>
> Many viewers, incidentally, feel that they have found the answer to
> India's security problems. An email that is doing the rounds suggests:
> "Change of guard in India's security agencies and Ministry of Home
> Affairs: M.K. Narayanan to be replaced by Arnab Goswami as National
> Security Adviser, Barkha Dutt as home secretary in place of Madhukar
> Gupta, Praveen Swami the new IB Chief, Rajdeep Sardesai as special
> secretary for internal security in place of M.L. Kumawat, and India TV
> to replace DD!" Till that actually happens, light a candle for Indian
> television's biggest reality show.
>
> --