Death of broadcast news!

There is no prime time news on our English television news channels anymore. What we have is only the cacophony of studio debates. These debates have different nomenclatures in different channels, such as Talking Point, The Newshour, Buck Stops Here, Centre Stage and so on. However, what is common to all of them is the saga of talkativeness and argumentativeness. Everyone, including the anchor, talks and argues almost all the time, just to prove a point. Why not? After all, we are ‘argumentative Indians’ if Amartya Sen were to be true. But these television channels have reduced talk shows into a spectacle of sound and fury with very little substance. There is an old saying, “Whenever argument is weak, shout!” Television panellists (of course, most of them politicians) have taken it literally just to be sure that even when they have no arguments, at least the decibel level of their voice could intimidate the opponents.

Well, the credit (or the blame!) for setting a trend in such prime time television debates has wrongly been attributed to Arnab Goswamy of Times Now. His channel may have been the first to begin a studio-based debate during prime time on week days, but Indian channels have had such debates, though not always around prime time on week days. The real cause, as it seems, for most channels to resort to such increasingly studio-based programmes is sheer economics. In an era of broadcast media incurring huge losses, cost cutting seemed not a mere choice but a necessity. And the easiest option that was available for most channels to bring down the cost was to cut down on expensive field reporting and increase the relatively cheaper studio-based ‘talk shows’. As a result, any news there is today, is generally borrowed from news agencies such as ANI or UNI.

But if we think that it is lazy journalism and an easy way to deal with economics, we are mistaken. These studio-based debates are fraught with their own problems. For one, the respective channel has to find a ‘worthy’ topic day in and day out to attach a ‘meaningful’ debate (and, of course, something that can spur maximum argumentation). The subject needs to be current, if not something related to some important occurrence of the day. Fortunately for the channels, the recent flash floods in Uttarakhand and the politics that followed, gave enough fodder for endless debates. However, a cursory glance at some of the debates on ‘dry days’ reveals that channels have indeed struggled to find worthy issues to debate on. And hence, even flimsy issues, which would otherwise have passed off as just another news item, have been made to look larger than life.

Setting agenda

Maxwell McCombs, who has carried out breakthrough research in media’s role in agenda setting, opines that the traditional agenda-setting role of mass media ‘involves both the surveillance and consensus functions of communication, calling attention to the new and major issues of the day and influencing agreement about what are the priorities of these issues’. The present day television debates are also setting agendas. However, the difference is that this agenda setting is not so much for ‘influencing agreement about what are the priorities’ of the issues, thus positively influencing public opinion; rather it looks as though these debates help the channels only to showcase the argumentative abilities of their ‘firebrand’ anchors, besides providing some infotainment to viewers. In a recent insightful article in EPW, former TV reporter Sandeep Bhushan calls this trend as ‘manufacturing news’ in studios which, in his opinion, ‘manufacture consent on behalf of the power relations.’ (Manufacturing news, EPW, June 8, 2013).

Finding right panellists

The other major problem that the channels face in sustaining these everyday debates is to find the right persons to come and carry on the show. The problem becomes compounded when the channels have a herculean task in finding people on both ends of the debating tug of war. The obvious choice, thus, is to get some prominent speakers from the two major national political parties. Most channels are based in Delhi and they must try as much as possible to find people locally. Also, those being called must have the all-important quality of the gift of the gab: they must be fluent in English, reasonably articulate and astute in rebuttals. Not many, even if they are intelligent and smart, possess this quality. Hence, television channels have to return to the same faces time and again. That is why we see on a daily basis the likes of Manish Tewaris, Ravi Shankar Prasads, Abhishek Singhvis, Nirmala Sitharamans, Chandan Mitras, Aun Jaitleys, among others, hopping studios. But, even these panellists are very calculative in appearing too often on TV, as they know that people can get bored of the same faces. However, as Nalin Mehta in his book India on Television points out, they will not mind appearing any number of times during 'high viewership days’ such as elections.

With the disappearance of any meaningful coverage of news and field based stories, the TV  audiences have to either give up watching news on television or change their taste. TV channels may not really be perturbed by the loss of such an audience, as they know they will always find newer audience, especially in those who like more drama on the floor. However, the issue here is not so much about losing or gaining audiences as loss of broadcast journalism per se. It seems, broadcast journalism in India is on a steep decline, if not on the verge of extinction, unless some serious thinking goes into making it palatable. It is not that channels must put an end to these talk shows. However, most of these talk shows end up just that: mere talking with hardly any new insights and nuances being tabled. Perhaps, our men and women must take a cue or two from the highly watchable and insightful debates and talk shows on BBC, such as Question Time, Date Line London and Hard Talk, where the anchors intervene only when it is absolutely necessary and not so much to prove that they have better knowledge. In these shows also there is disagreement and differences of opinions among panellists. But, all that is presented in a manner most worthy of a professional mass medium. Further, these shows, with deep research and thorough professionalism being their forte, add a newer dimension to broadcast journalism. Perhaps, Indian channels have a long way to go in bringing such dimensions to the studios, or will anything similar suit us Indians – the argumentative lot – at all?

- Melwyn Pinto SJ