Dead and exclusive8230;

Costa-Gavras8217; Mad City opens with a close up shot of a TV cameraman loading film in his camera.

Costa-Gavras8217; Mad City Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Alan Alda opens with a close up shot of a TV cameraman loading film in his camera. It looks like someone8217;s loading a gun. Costa-Gavras, who doesn8217;t make films that don8217;t make strong statements, probably wanted the viewer to entertain the illusion. Mad City is his take on American TV journalism gone too far. Hoffman plays a TV reporter who manipulates a hostage situation for a national 8220;live and exclusive8221;. Travolta plays an out-of-job, somewhat out-of-his-mind, security guard who creates the hostage situation.

If you were to make a film on Indian TV journalism and, in the best Bollywood tradition, decided to copy chunks from a Hollywood film, be sure to make one change. The opening shot of the TV cameraman loading film should look like someone8217;s filling up a jerry can with diesel. I know that illusion is tough to create. But if you don8217;t do it, it would be terribly unfair to Indian TV journalism. The police have only talked about 8220;unnamed8221; TV journalists 8220;abetting8221; a case of suicide by helpfully providing diesel. The live and exclusive 8211; or dead and exclusive, perhaps 8211; was courtesy a Patna contractor protesting non-payment of dues by the government.

I watched Mad City a few Sundays back. That day the rescue of Haryana8217;s little Prince was the national live and exclusive. TV news had created a searing national drama out of a local accident. Haryana8217;s CM was talking about flying in German or was it Dutch specialists and TV anchors were reporting it as if it were perfectly normal for Western rescue crews to hotfoot it to India every time someone fell in a hole. I remember thinking there8217;s a big gap between being silly and exploitative and that Indian TV news hasn8217;t bridged that gap.

But has it, after what happened in Patna? Let me anticipate and try to answer some objections to this question. Objection number one: I am tarring the entire broadcast news industry with the diesel-soaked cloth allegedly used by one errant TV cameraman. Answer: No. I am asking whether what happened in Patna is symptomatic of a kind of broadcast journalism where anything can be and is live and exclusive, provided someone8217;s willing to do it in front of a camera.

Objection number two: How do I know responsible TV news broadcasters are not shocked by what happened? Answer: I don8217;t. Responsible TV journalists have better things to do than talk to me about their professional conscience. But viewers like me get a peek at TV news8217; professional conscience from what is aired. Did the Patna incident get two minutes on India 60 minutes? Did it stare back at viewers on Face the Nation? Was it briefly an X factor? Did someone on Indian 360 say this was the third degree equivalent of TV journalism?

Objection number three: Why should TV journalism do soul searching on the basis of a police case? Nothing8217;s proven. Answer: Are you kidding? Since when have journalists waited for legally watertight proof of wrongdoing before getting involved in a story? Our job as journalists is to take a professional call on whether allegations are substantive and whether the story is in the public interest. Then we run with it. We also do our own investigations. I reckon this was a story that responsible representatives of broadcast news should have run with, and investigated.

Objection number four from a different perspective: I keep making this distinction between responsibleserious TV news channels and those that are manifestly not. I have made that distinction many times in this column. Am I wrong? Answer: For the sake of broadcast journalism in India I need to be right.