The news that breaks

Indu Ramesh writes with equal parts humour, nostalgia and exasperation about the way news and its presentation has changed in India. 

Things change. Oh yes, they do. Remember the time when the only news we got was from the newspapers? I remember my neighbour in Mysore waiting for The Hindu to come from what was then Madras. His children had gotten used to the Bangalore newspapers but not the old man. Even though he knew the Bangalore papers published the same thing, he would wait until 12 noon for the Madras paper to come to believe in the latest political speech by Jawahar Lal Nehru.

There was no ‘Breaking News,’ no hysterical anchors, no report from Ground Zero. I guess we took it for granted that the 9’0’clock News on All India Radio was gospel truth. It was also the way everybody learnt to speak English. Melville De’Mello, Shurajit Sen and Lothika Rathnam were household names.

Why am I going back in decades to remember them?

I am amazed at the speed with which the reporters, including young women who don’t look like they can carry a video recording machine, run to be there first; be it a murder, building collapse or a political leader out to prove that the opposition has colluded with the clouds to bring rains like never before. Everything comes into my living room – the Uttarakhand deluge, the building collapse in Mumbai, the starving population of some sub Saharan state, etc. Most of us have become news hawks, comparing one channel with the other – not the news, but the anchors and their decibel levels. While just talking to a friend in the media, I found that most of them are graduates and post graduates from Mass Communication schools, which have sprouted all over. They are trained in interviewing, moderating discussions and writing three and a half sentences in good, understandable language.

Alas, nobody has taught them how to form their questions; instructed them not to shriek at the person they are interviewing; not to jump up and ask questions in very loud voices or even to wait for their turn to ask questions.

Things have changed and I find that I cannot keep step with the frenzy with which news channels bring in ‘Breaking News!’

But then, things have not changed at all. I woke to this fact watching the coverage of the Uttarakhand deluge and the more recent floods in Assam. No, things have not changed at all, except for the fact that the pictures are in colour, even in the next day’s newspapers.

Remember the days when it was mandatory for the movie theatres to show the Films Division documentaries and News reels? Every year, just after the monsoon started, we were shown films of the deluge in the Brahmaputra, the river Kosi, Ganga etc., with people being shifted from their homes, boats navigating through the flooded rivers, all in black and white with mournful flute music by Pannalal Ghosh in the background. Added to that would be the solemn voice of Zul Vellani.

If it was elections, there would be pictures of colourfully clad tribals in remote areas walking in groups to the polling stations making it a festival, which was always emphasized over and over again by the voice in the background, making us feel that the elections in the country were one big festival. There was no mention of the freebies distributed, but there definitely would be some story about booth looting and candidates beaten up, which came much later in the years.

I said things don’t change. They do. The language of the reporter. Let us take up Cricket. In the bygone days when cricket really was a ‘Gentlemen’s game,’ teams met, had five days of play with a rest day in the middle, the commentary on the radio was sober, easy to understand and the next day’s newspapers carried stories which were not all hype. Watching the coverage of the recent cricket matches, I only hear words like ‘Havoc’, ‘Lashed’, ‘Thrashed’, ‘Crushed.’ Are the games for entertainment or war on a massive ‘Win or Else’ operation?

Could go on forever, but there is a press conference on the TV where I am happy to say, the wily politician is being dismembered by a group of reporters. This I must watch.