Mar 23, 2006 12:15 PM
3826 Views
(Updated Mar 23, 2006 12:15 PM)
It started as an alternative to Zee and Star news, the then leaders among news channels. From a humble beginning, as an one-hour news bulletin to launching a full-fledged 24-hour news channel, Aaj Tak ‘revolutionised’ news viewing. In fact it changed the whole concept of news as mere piece of information. It made news look like a soap opera. News has become entertaiment. But here ends the achievement!
Today, in order to ‘live’ (to be precise survive) its ‘Sabse Tej Channel’ tag, it has gone all out trivializing news, making no-issues sounds like state emergencies, giving too much coverage to stupid ‘news’ (call nonsense). Sensationalising news, making things blow out of proportions has become its USP.
One of the ideal cases that I could recount form numerous of its ‘goof-ups’ is the one in which it run a story on how a man had intuition of its death by that evening. According to the hero of the news story (call it complete crap), Lord Shiva called him on his dream and ‘broke the news’ that he would die the next evening. So he woke up in the morning, and started for its last ‘journey’. And as soon as the news spread, the Sabse Tej channel reached the spot, and gave a thorough coverage to the news. But unfortunately, the man didn’t die and the channel in a face saving gesture summed the whole thing up by saying that it wanted to show how superstition can make people fool as it made to them (the channel).
The channel, which claims to be desh ka no 1 channel, is no 1 in creating hoax. In its mad rush to be the first to cover everything, it never cross check the authenticity of the news, a dangerous ploy which might snowball into major crisis. However, all they care is their viewership and TRP.
A few words for its anchors! It has a gathering of few of the most lousy and unworthy news anchors, who sound like crap and look like jerks. Their depth of knowledge can be gauged by their ‘expertise’ in reading out whatever matter runs in front of their eyes, without even knowing the exact meaning of it. Their diction, pronunciations and accent all account for its huge rustic (I prefer it calling rickshaw wallah) viewership.
I know informed people make for a strong nation but what if they are misinformed by channels like Aaj Tak. Sure, not the perfect prescription for a ‘strong’ democracy.
