Wednesday, July 22, 2009

BREAKING NEWS !!!


I heard the phrase "BREAKING NEWS" for the first time on CNN, right after the 9/11 attack. It was flashing all day throughout the course of the entire episode. That was the period what I feel as "The Incubation" as far as the Indian television news channel industry was concerned. Very few players here then, who actually broadcast the BREAKING NEWS themselves. At that time I yearned for WHEN, will such a kind of quick response news be aired LIVE or in other words, news be broken on an Indian News Television. As time passed by, the Indian News Channel industry bloomed and umpteen number of News Channels came into existence and my yearning finally started to recede. For once I was happy on the fact that our Indian News channels have started to compete with the News Channel giants across the world in providing quality "BREAKING NEWS". But today, the objective of our news channels have shifted greatly into a way of using "BREAKING NEWS" everyday for highlighting all sort of stories which are not way worth it making to that category and hence the whole meaning, importance and essence of "BREAKING NEWS" is totally lost.

The trend as on date of our news channels are of providing EXCLUSIVE news footage rather than the actual news conveyed in its true sense. Every news channel on a daily basis will definitely have at least one such news item to use as their USP (sounds funny for a news channel though). With the advent of Internet, telecom and technology its happy to see the advancements in news channels (be it Online opinion polls or the Sms polls etc) but the questions many a time taken up for discussions or opinion polls aren't actually the questions that arise based on a particular news event but rather a discussion which actually gives new dimensions to the issue which dilutes the actual issue discussed in first place.

There was once a time where controversies or issues were brought to the light by news media but now the news media itself is being used as a medium to spark controversies and then being broadcast as something EXCLUSIVE caught on tape, making the little known people involved in it, a celebrity, overnight. It would be really incomplete if the advertisements doesn't have a mention here. Are the advertisements in midst of news or the other way round ?? Day by day the news footage space on screen is reducing with more and more advertisement blocks occupying the bottom of the TV screen.

Nowadays more often than not the News Media have come under the scanner of the Information & Broadcasting Ministry citing the media coverage of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks for instance. I feel the media hype or the media frenzy (to be more apt) that was created for the Swine Flu here has made the common man panic rather than be aware. The opportunistic side of such adverse coverage of Swine Flu situation has resulted in the sky rocketing demands for the face mask and medicines (that supposedly said they had cures for the Flu).

In a nutshell the news on TV is more of "re-engineered" news and "highlighted" entertainment rather than what it truly needs to be.

11 comments:

  1. Very true man!
    Indeed the BREAKING NEWS is that News is not worth it anymore! :)

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  2. Welcome to the world of blogging...:).
    And yes..Good start..!!

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  3. good start and the topic to start with is really true and valid . y was it particularly aimed at the media ????

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  4. to add on to your view its giving away of wrong info to ppl which has so not happened at that particular place focussed .

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  5. In every career,at some point or the other,one faces a very basic dilemma.

    Should one devlop one`s own notion/idea/philosophy of what he is doing,(In this case-Of what "journalism" means in the truest sense of the term) and strive to evolve according to how the ideal guides him,

    Or,simply "survive" by running the rat race,and never actually know what in the truest spirit is your job actually.

    Good start!!
    Well written :)

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  6. Hey ! gud topic..esp in de current situation.Things r being blown out of proportion in de name of keeping citizens informed.Undue hype to petty issues..

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  7. U r right ! The Word media is not People friendly its Rumor friendly "I hope u have forget about DD news"

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  8. Hey i dont want to be the party spoiler......But face it all.. this is how it is going to be.. whether u like it or not.....
    .. and the worse part it they glorify this...U know the Pulitzer Prizes ... so who was the Pulitzer ... one of the most controversial figures in news history who sold his papers with two keywords (scandal sensationalism).....

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  9. Hey the best would be headlines today....
    They had actually spent one WHOLE WEEK with their exclusive breaking news : THE GREAT KHALI COMES TO INDIA (wwe is as such a spoof ,, now they were building an exclusive spoof or what).....................ANd the worse part is....I WAS WATCHING IT>> what the hell???

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  10. Stop complaining. Act. Can't change things just sitting around blogging. Act.

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  11. And one more thing...I found u were looking for some importance and essence in a BREAKING NEWS.. I am sorry dude, a breaking news is in itself a gory thing, has been taking us back from civilization since the invention of cameras, TVs and your so called 'news media'. I think you are always outside rather than inside the situation. Life's horrible is not any more horrible. You look up to 9/11 coverage, sad enough. You have all turned into voyeurs, parasites that feed on News feeds. You are just a mute spectator, but passive. The image and the content you expect in that Breaking News column is an example showing why I say that we are going backwards. And I do not see where you mentioned what media needs to be. So no point made. And TV is not = News. No point made. Sudden jump from 9/11 to Swine Flu. No point made. Scattered. Sorry for being a strong critic, I am in the media, working against it, a Terrorist in the organisation. For more details and heated debates... contact chaikadai@gmail.com

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