Opinion Immersive journalism
In this electronic version of the 19th century freakshow, digital wine-glasses are being stood on the rims of digital bathtubs, and real journalists are being made to slide into real bathtubs, while the dead actor’s height is being measured up against the length of products in sanitaryware catalogues.
History tells us that the continental contest has its jinx. 
The Sridevi story has been done to death by TV, and the remains of the medium are fit to be interred
The invasion of Iraq brought us the horror of embedded journalism, in which pliant hacks were scooped up by the American war machine and made to report exclusively from within the belly of the beast. It produced journalism that was like a deodorised, low-sodium, alcohol-free version of Nicholas Tomalin’s 1966 New Journalism classic from Vietnam, The General goes Zapping Charlie Cong. Now, another tragedy elsewhere in the Middle East has given rise to immersive journalism far away in India. The untimely death of Sridevi in Dubai has newsreaders hovering around bathtubs and investigative reporters diving in like performing seals.
The story is that a superstar loved by millions has died unexpectedly. At present, that is all. Whether it happened under botox, or under the influence, or under the confluence of constellations, or none of the above, is speculation. The question of causality is addressed by forensic specialists, not by TV journalists trying their hand at amateur sleuthing. In this electronic version of the 19th century freakshow, digital wine-glasses are being stood on the rims of digital bathtubs, and real journalists are being made to slide into real bathtubs, while the dead actor’s height is being measured up against the length of products in sanitaryware catalogues. This is mumbo-jumbo journalism, a ratings game in which Mumbo is trying to pull ahead of Jumbo.
This sport is generating media effluent in toxic volumes and the viewer is drowning under the information overload. We are being forcibly immersed in the story, embedded in the non-story. For now, all we know is that the bathtub did it. And that immersive journalism has gone down the tubes.
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