Whither journalism’s norms?

Apparently, TV news channels seldom learn from their past blunders. Remember, how domestics were tried, indicted and damned by even the most respected news television channels in the Arushi murder case? The subsequent CBI report had left a lot of egg on many a righteous face. We have been watching similar approach to the ongoing Bhattacharya case in Norway. Interviews with the family, friends and sympathizers had created an aura of victimhood around the Bhattacharya couple whose children were “snatched away” by the Norwegian authorities and placed in foster care thus “depriving the children of their cultural moorings”. TV-inspired crowds held rallies and vigils in the national capital to “express solidarity” with the supposed victims of Norwegian heartlessness. Hints of racism were thrown in for good measure. Now Headlines Today tells us that, following the reports of “divorce proceedings” involving Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, the “diplomatic community has been left red faced”! Really? What about various TV news media that, without even conducting rudimentary investigations, had been relentlessly building up pressure on the government to take up the Bhattacharyas’ case with Norway?

Hardly had Dinesh Trivedi begun to savour the accolades for his “balanced”, “reform-oriented” and “progressive” railway budget when news channels relayed TMC Supremo’s fiat, “Off with his head!”; immediately followed the “clarification” that Trivedi would stay on. Even as UPA sighed with relief came another fiat: Trivedi should go, which he did after brief defiance, confirming the political wisdom that when an irresistible force strikes a movable object it should vanish. A bemused aam aadmi was left wondering whether this cantata was enacted by design, or was it a ham’s impromptu farce.

Last fortnight’s news TV confirmed once again that no matter how important an issue the nation may be facing cricket will intrude. Look at the way our media retailed salacious susurrations from the Indian cricket team’s dressing room in Australia. Then began the “seniors must go” rant, as if this was of critical import to the aam aadmi’s existential needs. Of course, we must applaud Dravid for his dignified exit. VVS Laxman and Tendulkar need only to heed the late cricket legend Vijay Merchant’s advice given decades ago on his popular radio show: A cricketer should retire when people would ask “why” and not “why not”. Period. Virat Kohli’s heroics against Pakistan in Mirpur induced assorted analysts to speculate whether the ageing God of Cricket’s successor had already arrived – comparing Kohli’s rate of scoring centuries with Tendulkar’s. Already the Lord of Off-side, Ganguly, has retired. Apparently, the Indian cricket is on its way to acquiring a populous pantheon of deities.

But surely there ought to be some sense of balance in news reportage? The news TV’s jabber-musketeers must preserve their munitions for more important issues like law and order, violations of Tamils’ human rights in Sri Lanka, killing of unarmed fishermen by Italians in Indian waters, long-term implications of the two budgets etc. It is time to liberate the masses from the effects of the opiate that cricket has become.

Published in The Tribune dated 01 April, 2012