Reporters
Vs Byte Collectors – The dilemma of news television in India
By Deepak Parvatiyar
(This article was published in Sahara news portal in 2009)
In an open letter on the web to the
National Broadcasters Association ( a body representing many of major news
channels of the country) recently, BV Rao, who happened to be my editor in Free
Press Journal in the early nineties, wrote about the superficiality of news
television while lamenting the way the Mumbai terror attack was covered on the Television.
“We could have cut down heavily on the empty hyperbole and lent substance and
sobriety to the proceedings,” he mourned.
Is that possible? For years…ever since
the initiation of private news channels in the nineties…TV news content is on a
gradual yet phenomenal decay. If we
thought we could beat BBC or CNN, our reporters woefully lack their exposure
and experience. The more our tv journo try to ape them, the more they expose
their limitations…and foolhardiness. Little wonder therefore that during the
coverage of 26/11, CNN in the USA London
in addition to the Delhi
Surely our TV reporters missed a
golden opportunity to rise to the occasion and make it big before the world,
when the entire world was watching them. No reporter worth his/her salt could
have imagined a better stage to capitalize on. But our TV reporters missed it.
Why?
The answer is not very difficult to
find. Actually our TV journo are just "byte collectors". Throughout
they have been trained to run around to capture the action(that our cameramen
are doing brilliantly) with sound byte. Obviously it is more of leg work (does
this take precedence over 'brain work'?). As my friend and journalist Deepal
Trevedie aptly points out, “they are conditioned or rather
"professionally" trained to scream screech and hyperventilate…”
An important pre-requisite for a tv reporter is to be loquacious. Imagine a tv reporter who is reticent! Therefore (s)he gibbers. After all, loquacity does not mean eloquence. Poor young byte collectors!
So who are we fooling? This is not the first time that TV reporting has been exposed of its hollowness. It is a joke tv reporters asking a dead man's wife - "aapko kaisa lag raha hai". What more? The sanctity of a scoop has been eroded by the jargoned 'Breaking News' on TV screens.
Mr Rao blames "TV's wedlock with venality" for destroying the institution of reporter in the last three years. But can this be attributed to the failure to produce any great reporter after the initial flush?
We have indeed seen some brilliant tv reporters. They research their subject before embarking on the assignment. I think it is not a coincidence that most of them have a print background (Some exceptions are there everywhere). The grinding in the print really matters. It teaches you that there is a story behind every sound byte. That a good sound byte is not the end of a reporting assignment but just the beginning of a good report!
Today I believe, even cameramen -- the real yet unsung heroes of news TV who are always right on spot, dare their lives to shoot something like the Mumbai attack -- can collect a byte or two for their channel! After all who is bothered about cooked-up PTCs by the pseudo-pedantic byte collectors?
This is indeed a shame. I wonder if editors can escape the blame for this rot. But then, as we all know, like the institution of reporters, the institution of editors is being destroyed methodically. I would invite Mr Rao, who also has considerable experience of TV journalism – his last assignment being of the Group Editor, Zee News – to write on this aspect.
TV has changed our priorities! Recently I was interacting with some journalism students. All wanted to be tv reporters/anchors. It meant instant stardom to them. Being seen by millions...to be a recognizable face...This is what they had dreamt of. The "faceless" print journalists were the poor cousins of the glamorous, much-better-paid tv reporter/anchor. Their impressionistic young minds were captivated by the thought of being renowned...Renowned without any achievement? Paradoxically, to become renowned is not a mean achievement for most of us!
It is not difficult to understand against this backdrop, where will ethics, ideology, quality and professionalism stand. "People know me because I appear on TV..." Sure today is the world of instant hits or flops, instant recognition, instant heroes, instant stardom, and so on. So one good sound byte (nothing of my own), and bingo I am there right on top.
Alas, still we crave for Quality! We were taught Class is permanent but today it is fighting its lone battle for survival in this instant world. So is ideology. Ever fathom an instantly cooked ideological doctrine? Today ideology comes in strange concoctions (expedient politics do have its impact here).
Then should we complain? Anything instant dies down instantly. But that is quite acceptable now. Mr Rao laments: "With the placebo of self-regulation in place, we are behaving like the pain in the butt is gone." He warns: " That's exactly how a placebo is supposed make us feel, but let me tell you, the pain will return."
But who will heed his warning? The bottom line is instant saleability/venality. Only that can buy you instant glory. The tragedy is that TV news do impact us. That is why people like us complain. But who cares? News TV channels remain in their self-praise mode. Superficiality still remains supreme.
What I feel is that the recklessness of these news channels will prove suicidal and the day is not very far away when people will actually welcome a government imposed press censorship. After all, the question is definitely gaining voice that whether news TV really deserve to keep the "news channel" license?
Enough is enough.
Deepak Parvatiyar is the Chief Media Advisor of Isha Creative Vision Private Limited.
An important pre-requisite for a tv reporter is to be loquacious. Imagine a tv reporter who is reticent! Therefore (s)he gibbers. After all, loquacity does not mean eloquence. Poor young byte collectors!
So who are we fooling? This is not the first time that TV reporting has been exposed of its hollowness. It is a joke tv reporters asking a dead man's wife - "aapko kaisa lag raha hai". What more? The sanctity of a scoop has been eroded by the jargoned 'Breaking News' on TV screens.
Mr Rao blames "TV's wedlock with venality" for destroying the institution of reporter in the last three years. But can this be attributed to the failure to produce any great reporter after the initial flush?
We have indeed seen some brilliant tv reporters. They research their subject before embarking on the assignment. I think it is not a coincidence that most of them have a print background (Some exceptions are there everywhere). The grinding in the print really matters. It teaches you that there is a story behind every sound byte. That a good sound byte is not the end of a reporting assignment but just the beginning of a good report!
Today I believe, even cameramen -- the real yet unsung heroes of news TV who are always right on spot, dare their lives to shoot something like the Mumbai attack -- can collect a byte or two for their channel! After all who is bothered about cooked-up PTCs by the pseudo-pedantic byte collectors?
This is indeed a shame. I wonder if editors can escape the blame for this rot. But then, as we all know, like the institution of reporters, the institution of editors is being destroyed methodically. I would invite Mr Rao, who also has considerable experience of TV journalism – his last assignment being of the Group Editor, Zee News – to write on this aspect.
TV has changed our priorities! Recently I was interacting with some journalism students. All wanted to be tv reporters/anchors. It meant instant stardom to them. Being seen by millions...to be a recognizable face...This is what they had dreamt of. The "faceless" print journalists were the poor cousins of the glamorous, much-better-paid tv reporter/anchor. Their impressionistic young minds were captivated by the thought of being renowned...Renowned without any achievement? Paradoxically, to become renowned is not a mean achievement for most of us!
It is not difficult to understand against this backdrop, where will ethics, ideology, quality and professionalism stand. "People know me because I appear on TV..." Sure today is the world of instant hits or flops, instant recognition, instant heroes, instant stardom, and so on. So one good sound byte (nothing of my own), and bingo I am there right on top.
Alas, still we crave for Quality! We were taught Class is permanent but today it is fighting its lone battle for survival in this instant world. So is ideology. Ever fathom an instantly cooked ideological doctrine? Today ideology comes in strange concoctions (expedient politics do have its impact here).
Then should we complain? Anything instant dies down instantly. But that is quite acceptable now. Mr Rao laments: "With the placebo of self-regulation in place, we are behaving like the pain in the butt is gone." He warns: " That's exactly how a placebo is supposed make us feel, but let me tell you, the pain will return."
But who will heed his warning? The bottom line is instant saleability/venality. Only that can buy you instant glory. The tragedy is that TV news do impact us. That is why people like us complain. But who cares? News TV channels remain in their self-praise mode. Superficiality still remains supreme.
What I feel is that the recklessness of these news channels will prove suicidal and the day is not very far away when people will actually welcome a government imposed press censorship. After all, the question is definitely gaining voice that whether news TV really deserve to keep the "news channel" license?
Enough is enough.
Deepak Parvatiyar is the Chief Media Advisor of Isha Creative Vision Private Limited.
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