The Hindu Business Line : Code for TV news channels

With all my experience of nearly 60 years in public life, I have no hesitation in saying that some of the best and brightest talents that one can wish for have found their way to India’s TV news channels as anchors, moderators of debates and the like. At so young an age, they give an impressive account of themselves with their command of the language, vibrant and self-confident personality, power of articulation, and the ability to go into the issues in depth.

The material put out by way of backgrounders also shows evidence of considerable effort on research. Indeed, as one who had been watching with close interest TV programmes in many of the industrial countries over the years, I even think that they are perhaps among the best in the world.

This is about the visible faces; I have no doubt that those manning the supporting services — the backroom boys and girls — making such high-class programmes possible must be good too. If only they are on guard against certain avoidable foibles, they could be said to be almost unbeatable.

The first is regarding the commentators meant to provide viewers with different angles of news events. The persons invited to join the programmes come up to expectations in regard to their credentials and expertise. However, the choice seems confined to a narrow range with regard to both the individual invitees and the geographical spread, with the result viewers see the same persons appear, may be, on four or five occasions in the course of the same month. Most of the time they belong to the same places and institutions in or near about the capital.

Safe rule

If the channels tap into the enormous knowledge and experience out there in, for example, the South or North-East, they will be able to bring a rich variety of insights in analysing developments they focus on. Anchors and moderators should not talk so much themselves by way of introducing their questions as to leave comparatively little time for the interviewees to respond. Actually, observance of a ratio of one is to 10 between the interviewer and interviewee in terms of time taken or words used is a safe rule.

When inviting questions from the members of the audience, the anchors should give them ample scope and time, remembering that they, after all, echo the feelings of the persons-in-the-street so to speak. Much time can be saved if those conducting the programme leave the questions as they are, to be answered by the panels as best understood by them, instead of elaborately paraphrasing them once again.

Then, there is the tendency on their part to aggressively flog the same story centering round the purported omission or commission of some particular individuals day after day with such garnishing as to make viewers wonder about a possible hidden agenda or motive behind it.

In regard to stories with international ramifications such as terrorism, TV news channels need to observe a degree of reticence and undertake careful prior in-house examination of the implications of what they seek to put out.

In the story that broke in Australia concerning Mohamed Haneef, for example, many of the statements telecast by the channels did not accurately bring out the legal nuances. Further, the treatment was akin to a sentimental overkill out of sync with the actual state of affairs. Finally, a little bit of humility and restraint on the part of anchors and moderators will do a lot of good to them. One of them declaimed in Ramnath Goenka Memorial Debate that people were terrified of him and he wanted everyone to be terrified of him! Not a becoming boast, that!

B. S. RAGHAVAN