News 24×7

News has always been a passion, but with the advent of 24×7 TV news coverage, it has created an appetite and fueled it continuously. But more importantly it has also opened up a whole new perspective – watching the media. For me it started a while back, watching the news media driving themselves into a frenzy day and night, during the Bill Clinton presidency – his affair, the investigation, the impeachment hearing et al.  Principles of journalism and reporting fell to the wayside, as each reporter and newscaster tried to score a point, with every visual second.

India while playing catching up has had an advantage. They never had to invent most things, but simply copy them. This should have worked to our benefit, and it does most times. But it also has another effect, where we triy to one-up the original.

Indian newspapers have enjoyed a glorious past, many strong and established ones reporting from the Pre-independence era. They had established amongst themselves a code of conduct that rivaled the best in the world. My personal rating scale has always been based on the ‘The Hindu‘. Rarely have i seen journalism that is superior to the standard held by this one newspaper in India. And i mean that across the whole world. I have had the advantage of tasting most US, Canadian, British and a few other English dailies.

The TV News media in India is probably the lowest i have seen. I must admit i have also seen quite a bit of TV news coverage from around the world. And assuming what i have seen are from the ‘leading’ TV news broadcasters from their respective countries, the Indian TV news media falls way short of expectations and delivery. Mind you, i am only talking content, culture and taste – covering the core ethics of journalism. And from the earlier premise that TV news was anyway at the bottom of the ranking, when it came to principles and ethics, the Indian TV news channels must be the scum amongst the scum.

Exclusive and Breaking News
The news broadcasted by the 24×7 news channel in India apparently fall into two categories only: Its Breaking News, and if its not, its Exclusive. How do you differentiate ?

Breaking News is usually shared and shown across most TV channels at about the same time or day or even week. I have been trying to get a grip on this, but with little luck. I have found that breaking news, is typically the first story that opens a 9pm news. And is the standard tag used for virtually any live coverage of any event. But the most important trait is that the news currently being aired is neither breaking or news. You have already heard about it, unless you just crawled out of a rock, just that instant before it aired on TV.

Exclusive News is the tag used by a news media, attempting to one up on its competition. This type of news covers the remaining time in a news broadcast. The best proponent of this is Times Now. They show the ‘Exclusive’ tag on the screen, as a water mark, and the newscaster also shouts it out for a good measure, just incase you were blind or had a near-zero vision. It is difficult to miss the onscreen display otherwise. The veracity of the claim though, like breaking news, is quite questionable. It interesting to note, that each of the major TV news channels would manage to elicit the same information in separate one on one interviews, so that they could air this exclusive interview, about the same time in their prime time news.

Today, i do continue to watch the news. But after soaking in the first few words of the news, i am actually watching the news channel, like i would watch any other reality show. Its fun sometimes, most times annoying and almost always channel surfing good – only to land on to the next 24×7 news channel. India is also blessed again. The residents here, like me, can start with the English, then move onto Hindi, followed by Tamil, Malayalam and maybe if really bored try Telugu etc. Oh ya, there is a good measure of financial news channels that add value during the evening prime time. Its one big circus.