State of the elections: national, regional coverage is polls apart

NDTV’s election show anchors, two of the most experienced in the business, have been livelier and sharper than they were on Thursday. The back and forth between the studio and on-field correspondents was dull — sometimes worse, as when the Kolkata reporter kept addressing one of the anchors when his interlocutor was another city colleague. The studio set had two chairs for panelists but panelists there were none for most of the morning — peak viewing time, when results were being announced. Nilotpal Basu, who did sit for a while, looked forlorn when the camera panned.

A former colleague and a senior print media editor told me — and I cross-checked this with three other news junkies — that NDTV’s Hindi service appeared to have designated AK Antony as the departing CM of Kerala, making Oomen Chandy’s day doubly worse. This, plus the way that CNN-IBN’s news anchor on Friday late morning told us what ‘‘K M’’ Karunanidhi was doing in Tamil Nadu and how Times Now’s exit poll show briefly put Pranab Mukherjee’s face in a photo slot captioned MK Stalin, perhaps demonstrate, if a demonstration was indeed required, why we need a regional media.

Regional language channels have the advantage, in elections like these — predictable and producing no more than a couple of halfway interesting nationally relevant insights — of possessing local domain knowledge. I wish I knew Tamil and Malayalam. TV news in these languages must have been as interestingly informative as that in the language I do know, Bengali.

Bored of Brand Buddha bytes on national TV, I switched to Bengali TV channels which told me that, among other things, the West Bengal CM was unhappy with many of his ministers and that the thumping victory of a Left candidate in North Bengal had prompted demands for his elevation to deputy CMship. Not exactly pulse-racing stuff, I admit, but better than, say, the curious spectacle of the CNN-IBN senior staffer in Kolkata saying Lal Salaam along with cheering CPM cadres. Like method acting, method reporting, perhaps?

Still, CNN-IBN’s was the least yawn-provoking election show courtesy mostly its resident pollster. TV pollsters in general were pleased of course that the results went according to script. But public self-congratulation is always a risky business. CNN-IBN’s psephologist demonstrated the value of sobriety when one is proved right. I should pay a similar compliment to CNN-IBN’s national editor, who sat in during the channel’s exit poll programme. He strikes me as one of the few Indian TV journalists capable of effortlessly remembering that news is always bigger than those presenting/analyzing it.

I proved something, too — patience pays. This column calls for slightly more TV news consumption than would generally be considered safe and on days when the headlines are known by 9.00 am and there’s nothing new till 9.00 pm, the temptation to switch to and stay with, say, ESPN’s rerun of Ajit Wadekar’s English tour triumph is strong. I didn’t give in and was rewarded by two memorable images that spoke so much more than either the politicians involved or the TV channels that invited them realized.

First, the BJP’s Shahnawaz Hussain, sandwiched between a Left leader and the Congress’s Rajeev Shukla on an Aaj Tak panel, looking lost, almost not-there as the discussion continued without any reference to him. That was the most charged symbol of the BJP’s irrelevance in these elections. Second, Mani Shankar Aiyar, on Channel 7, being asked what he thought of Sonia saying sort-of-yes to Congress pleadings that Rahul be given more responsibility. Aiyar on Nehru-Gandhis usually means limitless loquaciousness. But he isn’t exactly a favourite right now, we are told. So, this time, his smile was wan, his countenance, pale and there was this melancholic air about him as he gave merely the Congressman’s proforma reply.

saubhik.chakrabarti@expressindia.com