Indian television news media
I may have witnessed this for the wrong reasons last week, but it was incredible to watch the Indian televised news channels (NDTV, Aaj Tak, Doordarshan and even the regional channels) bring forth the stories as they unfolded. To simply say it in one phrase, it was superb coverage with continuous updates of the situation and in-place correspondents bringing live news from the affected places, struggling along with everyone else, feeling the heat with rest of the people. To me, it was more profound this time because of the events that occurred one after another in what looked almost unreal for someone not in the heat.
My parents told me that the coverage of Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster was equally impressive, if not better. With such an impressive present, I wondered where would blogs actually fit in? All the time I was watching the tube last week, I rarely had the inclination to go online and read blogs. Blogs may add personal encounters and stories that are not covered by the media itself and tend to add tidbits to the story, but not present the entire story itself. So, it’s no wonder that not many people are turning to read blogs in India. At lesser cost and trouble, they’re getting most of it from the television, which almost every Indian household or neighbourhood has at least one.
At the same time, it’s probably very easy to sit infront of a television or read a newspaper and blog to the rest of world about the happenings adding probably an anecdote here and an anecdote there, when most of the story comes from the television or print news as I notice from some of the Indian news bloggers. For people that do not have access to the Indian news media, this is good, but it’s nothing great.
To me, it doesn’t matter, as long as the story comes out in all flavours cut or uncut, as long as it brings out the actual story, it serves the purpose. Taking a (discriminatory) stand on the mainstream media looks plain ridiculous.
Update (13 Aug): A day after I wrote this post, my friend Govind Kanshi takes the television media down in his post. I didn’t get to read this until now, but I have to say I agree. The media was probably feeding ‘consumers’ like me without really helping the people already in trouble. As he rightly points-out, they could’ve atleast helped with their bandwidth and 24-hour live cast. But, I guess, they’re trying to sell. Pity.