Newsroom? Courtroom!!. Review on ABP News

Looks like I'm in the company of Star News fans :)

A long time ago there was 'The World this Week' where Parannoy

Roy reported and hooked us all. Then came the satellite TV

glut and Roy got his 24 hour dream! Star News was an awesome

change from the state run DD news bulletins - and the anchor

persons surely smarter than the ones on DD.

Soon everyone was watching Star News. Parannoy expanded and

a whole bunch of new faces appeared. And with them came

Rajdeep Sardesai!

Star News does have a wide variety of programmes. But the

main issue is Sardesai and the others who're adopting his

style of news-reading - if you can call it that. Its not

news anymore - not just reporting facts and insights into

them - but forming public opinions - fairness be damned. Its

about the media deciding things and passing judgement. They

do not let their guests have a last say. They try digging out

a controversy out of the most uncontroversial issues and

very often put words in their guests' mouths - which is

very very unfair. Rajdeep goes to the extent of quoting his

guests out of context immediately after they've spoken by

interjecting (rather rudely) with ''so you're saying....''

and putting a completely different spin on the words.

If a guy's done good work - its 'so the govt is not helping

you with this' even if that was the last thing on the

person's agenda and he had no cribs before Star News caused

the seeds of one.

News persons should never pass judgement. Rajdeep and his

gang should not try and become representatives of a country

but should merely report what they see and the background

for the stories. Responsible stories can happen if you do

not get your personal biases into them.

Barkha Dutt is one bright spot in the team. Srinivasan too.

Unfortunately, the rest of the team are Sardesai clones -

almost.

Parannoy Roy should look beyond the ratings now.