Nov 13, 2004 01:13 PM
13060 Views
(Updated Nov 13, 2004 01:17 PM)
Whenever there occurs an event about which I feel passionate about or hold strong views, I usually make a beeline to NDTV 24 x 7.
NOT because they are there first
NOT because they tell it all
NOT because you can EXPERIENCE. TRUTH. FIRST.
But because, I get a kick out of having my blood boil at the blatant, unabashed and open one-sidedness of the coverage and the brazenness with which the channel not only gets away with it, but even manages to make a virtue of it.
PLUS POINTS:
Let me get done with the plusses first:
Innovation: Their program structures are the most creative and innovative. Many of their programs are copied by competing channels. Particularly interesting are the formats of “The Big Fight”, “We the People” and “Walk the Talk”. Sometimes they do get overboard like the ill-fated “I to I” which looked quite contrived. But overall, their formatting is extremely interesting
Production values: The sets, the anchors and the coverage does have a certain class. Probably big budgets, but more importantly, an adherence to international standards of programming.
Treading on unchartered territory: Not only are the budgets big, the channel is among the first Indian channel to send their correspondents to war zones, not only in India but also abroad. Yes, today, even other channels do send their people, but it was NDTV which started the trend by sending Barkha Dutt to Kargil, Ajay Shukla and Vishnu Som to Afghanistan and again to Iraq.
Sports coverage: This is fairly comprehensive if you want an encapsulated form of information on sports. Obviously not in the same class as dedicated sports channels like ESPN or Star Sports, specialist sports anchor Sonali Chander does a fairly competent job given the limitations.
Double Take: This copy of BBC's ''Spitting Image'' is one of my favorite programs.
MINUS POINTS:
Some areas where they need to pull up their socks:
Business and stock market coverage: Either you don’t try to be everything or be professional in whatever you do. The coverage of the stock markets and business news looks forced. When people like Vikram Chandra try to anchor business programs, they fall flat. Luckily they have got newer anchors like Shivnath Thukral or Nikunj Dalmia specialized for this purpose, hopefully that should make some difference gradually.
Weather reporting: The bimbettes presenting the weather report look extremely dumb and bored. The content is also quite frivolous – but then, that goes for all other Indian channels. None have the same class as say, CNN or BBC.
Mr-Know-Alls: Some of the anchors of the channel wear their ideology on their sleeve and refuse to let opposing points of view to come to the fore. The worst offender on this count is the over-rated Rajdeep Sardesai and to some extent, the big boss, Prannoy Roy. The other irritating character (who mercifully seems to have vanished of late) was Arnab Goswami
Poor regional coverage: Many of the regions are not properly covered. Either they are ignored completely or their bureaus are headed by people who either do not know the local language and are not familiar with the political and cultural milieu of the region they represent. Some examples are Srinivasan Jain (Mumbai), Jennifer Arul (Chennai), Nupur Basu (Bangalore). A few noteworthy exceptions to this rule are Monideepa Banerjee (Kolkata), Rajan Mahaan (Jaipur) and Uma & TS Sudhir (Hyderabad). Then there are those correspondents which stand out even among a poorly managed bureau – like Veer Raghav, Sanjay Pinto, Maya Sharma, Bhupendra Chaubey, etc. The capital has some good experienced people like Divya Malik Lahiri, Anubha Bhosale and Nidhi Razdan.
BACKGROUND:
NDTV (India) Ltd was started by Prannoy Roy, a Doon school alumnus who further studied at Haileybury (UK). After a BSC from London University, he did his Chartered Accountancy and then a Ph.D from DSE. He then specialized in psephology. Using his close connections with Rajiv Gandhi (his senior at Doon), he got the first professionally run election coverage of the 1984 general elections. Subsequently, he started NDTV which provided the informative “The World This Week” to a news-starved nation from 1985 onwards. This was a great effort at compiling footage from international TV channels and presenting it in an interesting manner. The professionalism stood out among the drab Doordarshan programmes of the day.
With the advent of cable TV, NDTV first tied up with Star TV to provide a news channel and then from 2003 onwards, branched out to form its own network.
BLATANT BIAS
The strong pro-Congress slant that is revealed in virtually every sensitive news item, is seen to be believed. The partiality is at times blatant (for e.g. during discussions), at other times, done subtly (while reporting news events). While taking swipes at the BJP, the strategies are quite well thought out:
Black out inconvenient stories
Highlight stories which can embarrass opposing parties (read BJP)
Ridicule BJP leaders and portray them either like devils (Modi, Togadia) or like jokers (Madanlal Khurana, BP Singhal)
In an audience participating program, gloss over inconvenient questions or take breaks at strategic points so that the topic can be changed.
In forum discussions, always get so-called independent voices which are usually pro-Congress or atleast anti-BJP so that the BJP or pro-BJP representative is hopelessly outnumbered. Some notorious names are Kuldeep Nayyar, Teesta Setalvad, Nandita Das, Vinod Mehta, Siddharth Varadarajan, etc.
I salute the patience of BJP representatives who grace the NDTV studios despite such flagrant misuse of goodwill.
Apart from the above, I'm sure there would be many more subtler strategies which some discerning viewers would be able to notice.
CONCLUSION:
At the end of the day, the lifeline of any news medium is its credibility. Even if one grants the tremendous professional streak among the channel workers, unless they shed off their image of being blatantly one-sided, they will soon find themselves having to “cry wolf” louder.
