By Ranjona Banerji
Much as I rant and rave against the abomination that is TV news in India, I find that a large proportion of older people are totally addicted to their favourite anchors and newsreaders. The Adani takeover of NDTV has particularly upset their regulars, as names like Ravish Kumar, Nidhi Razdan, Sreenivasan Jain and now Sarah Jacob have all quit. I often see pleas on social media: where have they gone, what will happen and so on.
As a print journalist, one of the first lessons I learnt is that “yesterday’s newspaper is today’s bhel puri wrapping”. And indeed, one did occasionally see one’s name on a piece of re-used, recycled paper. It kept one grounded and less full of self-importance. Like having to explain to people, as a junior staffer, that being a ‘sub-editor’ did not mean that you were next in line to be The Editor.
Sadly for print journalists, whether grounded, humble, full of themselves or ego maniacs, they can never command the sort of fan following that faces which enter your homes and bedrooms can do. You feel you know them, that they speak to you and what they say is worthwhile. This is regardless of what they actually say, which is often meaningless or written by someone else or they just act as a vehicle for someone else to have their say.
From a journalism perspective, the primetime debate is an abomination, a supreme act of calculated manipulative laziness. They are used to stoke passions and in the wrong hands, inflate hatred and even cause violence. Very little journalism goes into them. No truth to power, no investigation into wrongdoing, no revelations of fraud or crime. Try and recall the last time you watched an Indian TV channel present an investigation programme like the BBC’s Panorama or Horizon. Revelations against Big Tobacco were made on the American programme 60 Minutes. The 1999 film The Insider documented that.
Indian TV journalism has missed most boats when it comes to journalism. The love that people have for the faces and voices of anchors aside. A TV journalist with NDTV explained to me once why she had to quit because journalism ended quite early in Indian TV.
Over the years, the degradation has been complete. Many prominent anchors are now just propagandists. I just watched a clip of an anchor on Aaj Tak, which is the money-spinner for the India Today group, claim that cows breathe oxygen in and out and other scientific marvels. Several major TV anchors are out on Twitter defending the Modi government against Rahul Gandhi’s remarks in the US. These are the same anchors who were silent when India’s female wrestlers were manhandled by the Delhi Police at Jantar Mantar, just to reduce possible embarrassment to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he inaugurated his vanity project.
The situation in Manipur remains volatile. Comparisons are being made to civil war. Television is still not on top of that story. The government is BJP. Manipur is in India. Nothing from the IT cell for our celebrities to tweet about. Revelations of the FIRs against BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh by the wrestlers have appeared in The Indian Express. They make for stomach-churning reading.
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/he-offered-to-buy-me-supplements-if-i-gave-in-to-sexual-advances-wrestler-8641492/
The BJP universe instead had their captive celebrities tweet about how the wrestlers were unpatriotic traitors who took money and yet complained.
Where are your prominent faces and voices now?
And here’s this investigation from Newslaundry about a Hindutva fraud who lives illegally in a Lutyens flat.
https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/06/01/a-hindutva-fraud-accused-of-sexual-assault-lives-in-a-lutyens-flat-meant-for-mps
So no, I don’t know where your favourite TV people have gone. And nor am I that interested, to be honest.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.