Opinion TVP,TVIP,TVVIP
The Maradona-Messi problem in news TV
This edition of the column should begin by placing on record the debt it owes to the Honourable Union Law Minister,Veerappa Moily. Sir,it was after watching you,as you responded to news TV cameras as an energetic moth to a flame,as you,in response to 24×7 questions on the 26-year-old Bhopal tragedy,seemed to suggest exciting reviews of everything from the concept of criminal liability to the clauses defining nuclear liability,that a dormant idea came to life. You cant review news TV if you also,at least sometimes,dont review TV politicians (TVP). For example,Sir,where would news TVs coverage of the Bhopal judgment be were it not for the extra bite you provided? Your predecessor,Hansraj Bharadwaj,made news despite his not wanting to,if you know what I mean. You,Sir,make breaking news because you want to. Allow me now to turn to other prominent TVPs.
The first thing anyone will notice is there are too few of them. Jayanthi Natarajan and Ravi Shankar Prasad on every major news channel in the same evening. Or Manish Tewari and Rajiv Rudy. I understand finding TVPs is not a prime priority for a major political party; one certainly hopes it isnt. But look at America,to take one example of a TV-heavy major democracy. Scores of Senators and Congressmen do news TV rounds in America. There seems to be no unwritten rule,as there seems to be in India,that only a few are worthy of representing their party on news TV: this great forum of the nation where not only are laws debated but where,as in the case of Bhopal coverage,sometimes theres a distinct danger that new laws may be passed.
How many Congress and BJP MPs of the 300-plus the two parties have in the Lok Sabha,plus their Upper House representatives,do we see on TVP duty? The CPM has a better TVP-MP ratio. But thats partly because the CPM has few MPs. The CPI,an even smaller party,has an even better ratio. All big CPI leaders A.B. Bardhan,D. Raja,Gurudas Dasgupta are always on TV. The CPI may be approaching that state of grace a TVP,a television party,a party that exists primarily on television.
The second problem with TVPs is that they dont compete well enough with TVIPs (TVs important persons,aka,TV anchors). To take a football metaphor,what with the World Cup on,TVPs have to understand most TVIPs want to be both Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona at the same time they want to play forward and direct the play simultaneously. They want to ask a question and answer it before you have cleared your throat or have pressed down the thingamajig they put in your ear. So,TVPs,you need a certain amount of gravitas during your evening jousts with TVIPs.
It is my sad duty to report that most TVPs dont seem to exhibit this. Natarajan can appear stern,school principalish. Tewari can demonstrate he has a certain knack for using big words in TV talk. Prasad can show he knows the basic rule of a good debater,call everyone who disagrees with you,your good friend. Rudy can appear pretty cool. But none of them has that thing and neither does most other TVPs that thing which says okay so we are on TV,and yes,you will question me,stop me,provoke me,etc,but,hey,I come from a tough profession (politics) and the accumulation of my experience and my thinking on the subject at hand mean I more than just a bite to your bark.
Arun Jaitley and Abhishek Manu Singhvi sometimes get this across. But theres a wearying familiarity about these two. This shows the first problem with TVPs too few of them for major parties magnifies the second problem the tiny minority of impressive TVPs engender viewer fatigue. My favourites are two occasional TVPs: Yashwant Sinha and Mani Shankar Aiyar. They are not regular on news TV for different reasons. But whenever they do TVP duty,TVIPs back off a bit. TVIPs then merely want to be Maradona. Sinha and Aiyar can be Messi because they seem to have that thing: easily worn gravitas. We need more of that. Ergo,the pool of TVPs needs to get bigger.
Whos the TVVIP,TVs very,very important person? The viewer,of course. On this,if on absolutely nothing else,I am sure TVIPs will agree with me.
saubhik.chakrabarti@expressindia.com
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