The Hindu Business Line : The business of newscasting

FOR ages, news remained the sole domain of the print media. The Fourth Estate was the `press.' It carried on its shoulders the onerous responsibility of objective and fair reporting. The edit page was reserved for comment and opinion.

Much ink has flowed down the pages of newspapers. In a tumultuous life span, interrupted by the scissors of despotic censors and a few business-oriented owners, the `press' has largely kept its image intact. People still believe in the power and sanctity of the printed word. "I read it in the newspapers" is still almost the ultimate testimony of the veracity of a statement.

While this is a global phenomenon, news began to go electronic in the US with channels such as CBS introducing news-related programming in the form of 60 Minutes and the like. Legends like Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters gave the medium the weight of their personality and things began to look up.

Still it took the vision and the gumption of a man called Ted Turner to boldly go where no TV channel dared to when he launched CNN. Suddenly, you didn't have to wait for the sun to rise in order to read your morning newspaper. It was delivered to your bedroom, 24 hours a day.

The world had just become a busier place to live in.

The concept of 24-hour news programming really caught the imagination of the world on this side of the Atlantic during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, and the American Desert Storm. Indians were familiar with Kuwait, and Dahran and Riyadh. They all spelt Dinars to them. Indian audiences watched spellbound as Patriot missiles leapt skywards to intercept Scud missiles. Here was a 24-hour soap opera, and all for free.

Meanwhile back home, the only TV news one had, to begin with, was Doordarshan. DD, as it was called, dished out Government news with all the panache and flair of day before yesterday's newspaper. Ministers and newscasters became famous. The news remained unimportant.

We've come a long way, baby. Today the TV news space is crowded with heavyweights. Yet there are imperatives that need to be sorted out. The cold print on a newspaper allows you to read a fiery editorial and still gives you the space and time you need to make up your own mind and have an opinion yourself. An angry Rajdeep Sardesai or Barkha Dutt making an impassioned speech against the very real backdrop of burning bodies somehow doesn't.

When Mumbai was rocked by two bomb blasts, the over-powering imperative to report live, minute-by-impossible-minute made each news channel give a different report on as unequivocal a fact as how many bomb blasts there were. Objective reporting, and the truth, at any cost, died between the digital memory sticks of the racing camera crews. With it, credibility took a heavy knock. Add to that the partisan reporting of the Iraq war by CNN and suddenly one wanted to wait for the daily newspaper once again.

Yet, the race for eyeballs gets an impetus when a fantastic carnival like the great Indian elections appears on the scene. For four pulsating weeks, the 24-hour news channels had their scripts cut out for them. They had an army of free natural actors. Laloo and Jaya and Karuna and Atal were the stars of this soap. The advertisers had scented blood earlier. Advertising on news channels jumped before the viewership really started getting interested. By the time the election story got addictive, the commercials were all in place, waiting to waylay the politics-hungry Indian public. The top ten categories advertised during the election specials were soaps/shampoos, washing machines, election advertising, soft drinks, cars/jeeps, corporate, refrigerators, cell-phones and paan masala. Corporate advertising led the pack.

By the time it was the week in which the votes were counted, news channels registered a 70 per cent increase in time spent watching them.

Democracy had done to news channels what even terrorism and war could not do. It had driven up viewership, and ad revenue to heights never attained so far.

The challenge will be to retain viewer interest. And to do that, news channels would be well advised to ensure the age-old principles that ran the press. Credibility and more credibility.

(The author heads Canco Advertising.)

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