They all look the same

A sharp and weighty reminder every morning that journalism pays the bills comes via the stack of newspapers waiting to be read/flicked through/glanced at.

A sharp and weighty reminder every morning that journalism pays the bills comes via the stack of newspapers waiting to be read/flicked through/glanced at. Like many journalists with years of this morning ritual behind them I can pick out a particular newspaper quasi-blind — half a glance at the basic Page 1 font and one knows which paper it is, no need to look at the masthead. So if you wager whether, aided by nothing more than a quick look, I can pull out the Financial Express from a bunch of pink papers, you would lose. I wouldn’t pick the Economic Times or the Business Standard instead. But if you wager whether, under the same conditions, I would be able to tell CNBC from NDTV Profit, I would lose.

There’s a curious, slightly alarming sameness to business news channels. If I ignore the channel logo — that’s the equivalent of not looking at newspaper mastheads — I would be hard put to tell the sharp suits, articulate anchors, stock tickers, smart graphics and the PVC manufacturer tomtomming his JV on CNBC from the sharp suits, articulate anchors, stock tickers, smart graphics and the paper manufacturer defending his PE on NDTV Profit. Of course, every business channel has its special programmes that come with fairly distinctive audiovisual signatures. But I am talking about routine TV — the stuff that runs most of the day. I won’t confuse NDTV with CNN-IBN when both are presenting their afternoon news headlines.

It is necessary here to confess that your columnist is not business news innocent. Utter befuddlement as a viewer is not the source of my observation on product non-differentiation in business news presentation on TV. True, my pulse didn’t quicken perceptibly when Infosys announced its quarterly results. But I did nod along with the anchors when business news channels were reporting somewhat underwhelming movements in the Infosys stock and then gravely analysing why rupee movement took some shine off the company’s earnings profile. But, as Pete Seger sang in a different context (he did mention business executives though), they all looked the same.

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I really don’t know why this is the case. Neither can I figure out why general news channels make as little effort as business news channels to dejargonise financial news. Business news channels can always say they are addressing an informed and knowledgeable audience. General news channels have no such excuse. Some of their anchors really do appear to be far removed from what they are saying when they read out financial news headlines — as if it doesn’t matter whether it’s PE or JV that’s under discussion. This gripe of mine is getting a rerun — I had made the same point months back, on the occasion of another Infosys results announcement. I should proffer apologies in advance; I might come back to this again. The assumption that lay viewers don’t need an explanation of complicated issues bugs me.

What has consistently delighted me, on the other hand, is the presentation format for world news on Janmat: the studio set is the interior of a passenger aircraft, the anchor, dressed in a severe business suit and armed with a laptop, takes a window seat, and she offers a dazzling smile. If you don’t find this impossibly tacky to the point where it acquires a strange kind of charm, you may be the kind of person who, first thing in morning, switches on CNBC. Or do I mean NDTV Profit?

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