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This is an archive article published on November 10, 2010
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Opinion Charmed,despite ourselves

How TV news tore down and resurrected Obama over the course of his visit.

Shailaja Bajpai

November 10, 2010 11:44 PM IST First published on: Nov 10, 2010 at 11:44 PM IST

By Tuesday evening,we had a multi-starrer blockbuster. News 24 dubbed it “Singh is King”,with Manmohan Singh and Harbhajan Singh in Akshay Kumar cut-outs. One saved India’s blushes on the cricket field,the other India’s honour at his press conference with US President Barack Obama. “Michelle & I” may have been a more fitting title,given the number of references Obama made to the US first lady and himself during the visit and the media’s admiration for both at the end of it.

It didn’t start out that way. On Saturday,after Air Force One landed in Mumbai,only villains appeared on the screen. First,the step-ladder. It stubbornly opposed all efforts to position it properly for Obama to descend from the plane so we had to admire a burly American security officer instead. Next,Ashok Chavan breached protocol (or so we were told on NDTV 24×7) by welcoming the American president before the minister-in-waiting,Salman Khurshid,could extend his hand. Worse,he refused to attend the American president’s speech at the Taj hotel. Delightful minutes were spent,seriously,discussing this extraordinary lapse in bilateral relations!

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But the real villain of Saturday was Barack Hussein Obama. During his address to businessmen,he developed an alphabet disorder,cunningly detected by our newshounds: he couldn’t say the “P-word” or the “T-word” or “UNSC” because he had got stuck on “J” — as in “jobs”. TV news was enraged,but divided over his “maha bhool” (India TV): was it the no mention of Pakistan and its state-sponsored terrorism? Or the $10 billion worth of deals with India that would generate 50,000 jobs in America? Perhaps it was the top-secret document accessed exclusively by Times Now (and available to all other channels),on the interoperability agreement? While the Obamas supped on Taj kebabs,we tried digesting all of this: Headlines Today suggested,that “for the first time,the US needs us more than we need them.” “What’s in it for us?” asked an indignant Comrade Prasenjit Bose (NDTV 24×7)? The anchors were Kennedyesque: they asked not what India could do for America,but what America could do for India.

Another villain: BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy who put his mouth where it should not have been — before a TV mike — and said the BJP was disappointed with Obama making no reference to Pakistan. That gave TV news another thing to carp about.

Sunday saw two heroines: Michelle Obama as she danced her way into everyone’s hearts,and teased her husband,and Afsheen Irani who dared to utter the P- and T-words,forcing Obama to finally spell out his views on Pakistan and terror,thereby redeeming himself somewhat in the TV experts’ eyes — though the jury was out till he arrived in Delhi. When he did,the evening glow at Humayun’s Tomb bathed the Obamas in softer hues and as he knelt down beside the children,he looked like quite a nice guy.

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Monday evening,after Dr Singh outshone him at their joint press conference,the president of the United States of America stood in the spotlight at Parliament House. This was the moment he finally wrapped his tongue around Pakistan and its terror havens and a United Nations Security Council seat for India. In that instant,Saturday’s antihero became Barack Obama,Superstar.

No thanks to him. Even as channels showered him with praise for his “historic speech”,(IBN-7),Times Now said that the shellacking of “your views” expressed on “your channel” regarding Pakistan had been “endorsed by Obama”. So,it’s all “your” doing,whoever you are.

While the Obamas raised a glass (“not alcohol but protocol,” as Rajdeep Sardesai wittily said on CNN-IBN) at the state dinner,TV news continued to dissect. Partly because the visual telecast of the visit was restricted to DD News (except at Humayun’s Tomb where Star News stole a march). Since other news channels couldn’t get near the president and because 24×7 news is a “hungry beast” (Headlines Today),they had ball-by-ball commentary of his every delivery,the verbal googlies,the wrong’ uns,the bouncers…

Last word to an American: CNN said that although “Indians were very happy with what they heard… the local media would be picking it apart.”

shailaja.bajpai@expressindia.com