TV is not the truth. It is a goddamn amusement park. It is a circus, a carnival. A travelling group of acrobats, storytellers, lion-tamers, sideshow freaks. We are in the boredom-killing business.
- Peter Finch in Network.
Now, here's the thing. A man with a personal vendetta against silence should not, in my humble opinion be a mediator in a dialogue between members of two rival political parties. There's enough noise being generated by these idiots who're trying to fight the losing battle of putting their already fragile point across, in a sea of chaos. Then you add Arnab into that mix. That's akin to adding pure ammonium nitrate to gasoline, pulling the detonator switch, and putting your face close to see what happens. For the chemically illiterate, Big Boom Boom happens.
Nobody can deny that Arnab brings issues that are plaguing our nation to the public's notice. No one can take away the fact that he is an ambassador for change, and that he is campaigning for the people of this country. However, no one in their right mind can also deny that people like Arnab Goswami are all that is wrong with the journalistic profession today.
What you are getting from shows like the Newshour is much less news, and much more drama, masala, noise, and theatrics. I've sat through whole segments of this show, and come away having not learned a single new piece of information, or a single thing about what the actual news was, apart from the opinions of faux-intellects and foolish politicians. Shows like this, and by extension their creators/editors/conceptualizers/creative teams are more concerned with the TRP's, than about actually changing the state of affairs of the country by simply delivering news to the homes of the general public. There are numbers to back that up.
Mr. Goswami, if I may address you directly, I'd like to borrow a line from you and your show...I have great respect for you as a person. Your hard work and dedication at bringing pressing issues to the attention of the masses is commendable. The pipes that the creator has blessed you with are standout. I mean to be heard above the steady drone of noise from the rest of your panel trying to get your attention to make their point, while you pander to the people that agree with you, is truly a praiseworthy feat. That being said, you are the mediator in a discourse, a moderator in a debate, but before all else, you are a journalist. Do the values that your once noble profession stand for mean squat to you? Aren't you not supposed to let your own personal opinions and prejudices stand in the way of moderating these discussions? Aren't you not supposed to take sides, even if you stand for and are campaigning for all that is good and true? By definition, isn't that what a moderator in a debate is supposed to be doing? Aren't you supposed to listen to the opinions of the people you've called onto your show, rather than merely gratifying the people who endorse your own views? And who made you judge, jury, jailer and executioner over every little issue, including the most trivial one's? (India losing the Cricket World Cup. I mean, really?) Isn't your job merely to inform through your medium, and then to leave the good people of this country to opinionate for themselves, and then to campaign for change, if needed? Why are we being force fed your opinions and those of the panelists on your show who agree with you, Mr. Goswami? Do you have answers for me, Mr. Goswami? The nation needs to know! C'mon, loudly now!
Perhaps the Indian audience is fed up of simple Saas Bahu dramas, and have begun to crave drama in other forms. What other explanation is there to why sane people would come home from a hard day in the noise and chaos of the city, to subject themselves to even more noise and chaos, in the comfort of their homes? To a show where the noise dominates the news. Arnab has cleverly identified our craving for a little zing in every form of media, a little masala in every little morsel of television, and has adapted the news to cater to the public's demand. But what people don't see is that Arnab's opinions and the monstrous volumes at which they are voiced have the power to change people's perspectives on things, even if they are not right. For example, the documentary 'India's Daughter' on the Nirbhaya rape case was banned after the furor on Times Now, because Arnab questioned in a live open debate whether it should be screened on a rival TV channel (NDTV). That, and a nice little ruckus in parliament was all it took for the documentary to get banned in the country. Do you see where this is going?
Outlook magazine called Arnab 'The man who killed TV news', and rightly so. It also stated, and I quote "...the numbers for Newshour suggest that in a market saturated with information, there is an impatient audience out there, which doesn’t quite believe in layers and nuance; which wants someone to distil the key news of the day and spin it into sharp polemic in clear simple terms, just black or white, with no shades of grey." And Arnabji has mastered this little jig and is serving it up to the dumbed down general public on a silver platter.
- Peter Finch in Network.
| Every evening I come home to a load of noise, fighting, and chaos. No, I do not have a bunch of noisy neighbors that are constantly quarreling about their water supply or other more trivial matters. I am not a part of some fractured family that chooses to vent their frustration at the top of their lungs. Every evening, I come home to the nightmare that is 'The Newshour' blaring out of the idiot box at a volume that would wake up the dead from the local cemetery. And with 'The Newshour' of course, I come home to the brouhaha that is Mr. Arnab Goswami. |  |
Nobody can deny that Arnab brings issues that are plaguing our nation to the public's notice. No one can take away the fact that he is an ambassador for change, and that he is campaigning for the people of this country. However, no one in their right mind can also deny that people like Arnab Goswami are all that is wrong with the journalistic profession today.
What you are getting from shows like the Newshour is much less news, and much more drama, masala, noise, and theatrics. I've sat through whole segments of this show, and come away having not learned a single new piece of information, or a single thing about what the actual news was, apart from the opinions of faux-intellects and foolish politicians. Shows like this, and by extension their creators/editors/conceptualizers/creative teams are more concerned with the TRP's, than about actually changing the state of affairs of the country by simply delivering news to the homes of the general public. There are numbers to back that up.
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According to this Quora post (not fact checked, mind you), the market that Mr. Goswami and his esteemed peers in the English news media industry cater to is a tiny one. About 10 lakh Indians watch English news channels (0.033% of the country's population), which is unsurprising, given that we have more regional languages and more people that speak Hindi than any other nation. Out of that pie, Times Now's share is roughly about 4 lakh Indians, which is roughly 0.033% of the Indian population. Still a pretty substantial number of educated, literate people, who don't see the ugliness for what it is. What is scary though, is what this Economic Times article has to say. (Incidentally the Economic Times is owned by the same brothers that own Times Now. Surprise, Surprise!) Back in 2010, Times Now occupied first place in the English News channel space with |
| a market share of 37%, as compared to 15% for NDTV and 22% for CNN IBN. Let's analyze that for a second. That means that Times Now had a viewership that equaled the combined market share of the number two and number three channels in the English news space. That number has grown significantly larger since then, and continues to grow. We've created a monster that is growing exponentially, and the only thing that can arrest that growth is us. But we're still feeding said monster by tuning in every night at 9 p.m., and that's where the problem lies. | |
Mr. Goswami, if I may address you directly, I'd like to borrow a line from you and your show...I have great respect for you as a person. Your hard work and dedication at bringing pressing issues to the attention of the masses is commendable. The pipes that the creator has blessed you with are standout. I mean to be heard above the steady drone of noise from the rest of your panel trying to get your attention to make their point, while you pander to the people that agree with you, is truly a praiseworthy feat. That being said, you are the mediator in a discourse, a moderator in a debate, but before all else, you are a journalist. Do the values that your once noble profession stand for mean squat to you? Aren't you not supposed to let your own personal opinions and prejudices stand in the way of moderating these discussions? Aren't you not supposed to take sides, even if you stand for and are campaigning for all that is good and true? By definition, isn't that what a moderator in a debate is supposed to be doing? Aren't you supposed to listen to the opinions of the people you've called onto your show, rather than merely gratifying the people who endorse your own views? And who made you judge, jury, jailer and executioner over every little issue, including the most trivial one's? (India losing the Cricket World Cup. I mean, really?) Isn't your job merely to inform through your medium, and then to leave the good people of this country to opinionate for themselves, and then to campaign for change, if needed? Why are we being force fed your opinions and those of the panelists on your show who agree with you, Mr. Goswami? Do you have answers for me, Mr. Goswami? The nation needs to know! C'mon, loudly now!
Perhaps the Indian audience is fed up of simple Saas Bahu dramas, and have begun to crave drama in other forms. What other explanation is there to why sane people would come home from a hard day in the noise and chaos of the city, to subject themselves to even more noise and chaos, in the comfort of their homes? To a show where the noise dominates the news. Arnab has cleverly identified our craving for a little zing in every form of media, a little masala in every little morsel of television, and has adapted the news to cater to the public's demand. But what people don't see is that Arnab's opinions and the monstrous volumes at which they are voiced have the power to change people's perspectives on things, even if they are not right. For example, the documentary 'India's Daughter' on the Nirbhaya rape case was banned after the furor on Times Now, because Arnab questioned in a live open debate whether it should be screened on a rival TV channel (NDTV). That, and a nice little ruckus in parliament was all it took for the documentary to get banned in the country. Do you see where this is going?
Outlook magazine called Arnab 'The man who killed TV news', and rightly so. It also stated, and I quote "...the numbers for Newshour suggest that in a market saturated with information, there is an impatient audience out there, which doesn’t quite believe in layers and nuance; which wants someone to distil the key news of the day and spin it into sharp polemic in clear simple terms, just black or white, with no shades of grey." And Arnabji has mastered this little jig and is serving it up to the dumbed down general public on a silver platter.
| Remember Prannoy Roy? The epitome of television journalism. Remember the days when news was actually news, not a freaking circus with a bunch of clowns arguing over who was right with little to no information actually reaching the general public, after one whole hour of 'News'? How I miss those days. Because back then, I had the option of sitting in the same room as a family that was interested in the news, and still tune out of it, free to carry on with my own devices. Sadly now, I am being force fed a whole lot of bullshit in the guise of news at volumes that could blow out my brains, with little or no escape. |
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So I guess what I'm trying to say, Dear Arnabji, is that I have no respect for you at all. It would behoove you to change the name of your show to 'The Noise-hour', and to change your tagline to 'The nation wants answers that are in line with my political beliefs and social ideologies, and nothing more.' Because when the things that affected our country and the world became a Fox News style pseudo-drama, with a sprinkling of our very own homegrown 'Saas Bahu' masala for good measure, that's when it stopped being news.
