Opinion Top 9 from 09
History,health,shoes,sex and more
They said it. Yes,they did. I heard it. I saw it. I wrote about it. But I still cant believe it. Today,the last Saturday of this year,for the last column of this year,as I review a year of reviewing news TV,I am in awe. I could fill a page. But I only have a column,so heres my news TV top 9 from 09.
1. Money: Mukesh Ambani gets paid Rs 9,000 crore a year,US GDP is just four trillion dollars,and 70 per cent of Indians are below the poverty line. All this,from various editions of CNN-IBNs Face the Nation,which challenged conventional economics this year with a fearlessness that was scary. You are thinking,I know,okay we get the bit about US GDP and Indian poverty (in a free country you can say what you want),but Rs 9,000 crore as annual pay for Ambani! How did FTN get that? Simple. Talk about annual pay and refer to data on net worth (current market value of personal stock portfolio).
2. Language: A Sikh journalist threw a shoe at P. Chidambaram during a press conference. News TV threw something worse at English language. NDTV said,Drama at Chid presser. Ouch. It followed that up with Shoe Stopper. But CNN-IBN had NDTV beat. In one show,the following five appeared: Shoecide attack,Government gets the boot,Shoeing the Congress,Protest from the sole,A Sikh puts his foot down. Inspired,I had called this shoenami.
3. History: PM went to France,Star TV looked back at French history and concluded that July 14 (Bastille Day) is celebrated as a day France won its freedom. Historians are still asking,which foreign power did France win its freedom from? They are also asking,are solar eclipses historic events? They have to ask this,because CNN-IBN described this years eclipse as historic.
4. Science and nature: Also from eclipse coverage,NDTVs science editor telling us the sun is the biggest light bulb we have and theres no global warming associated with it. As I write this out again,I am as awed as when I heard it first. CNN-IBN said eclipses are special because unlike movies,you dont have to pay to watch them; nature allows you to watch eclipses for free. I havent watched a movie since without thinking about this.
5. Medical science: A tough call for me,this one. Do I pick CNN-IBNs discovery that we have two livers (reporting on 26/11 postmortem findings,CNN-IBN said one bullet was lodged in the right liver) or do I nominate two NDTV staffers discovering the secret of very long life? Reporting on the eclipse,NDTVs anchor said he and his science editor will be back in year 2132 to report on the next big eclipse. I pick both breakthroughs as worthy of note.
6. Health: We dont have an editorial position on H1N1,Times Now emphatically said,reporting on swine flu. What did Times Now mean? What editorial position can one take on a virus? This,I think,will be one of journalisms eternal unanswerables. Also from Times Now/swine flu: India is as scared as it was after 26/11,we beefed up security after 26/11,what is the government doing now. So true: wheres the security force for stopping viruses from slipping in?
7. India: This is the new India,and all we do in the media is to reflect on the new mood of this now great country: from NDTV,on the first anniversary of 26/11. I am in the media,and all I have done after I heard this is to reflect on this great sentence.
8. Racism: Times Now covering Indian students demonstrating in Melbourne this,when attacks on a few Indians studying in Australia was news and saying India fights back. Which India was fighting back? I understood much later that this must be the new India.
9. Sex: CNN-IBN,deconstructing Indian attitudes to sexuality: Sex is everywhere and the fact that we are denying it or trying to put a price on it shows that we are not part of the 21st century globalising market as we claim to be. Will there be anything on news TV in 2010 to beat this?
saubhik.chakrabarti@expressindia.com
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