Faux pas?

News papers do not proof-read. We all know that. With every passing day, the language in ToI gets worse and worse.

But what I didn't know is that big BOLD flash news items are also not proof-read on TV. Yesterday, there was a CWG round up where the anchors were getting all emotional about Sania Mirza's "emotional" interview. And the flash across the screen, big and bold, occupying half the screen space, read:

"NEXY GOAL IS OLYMPICS"

For a few seconds I didn't understand what nexy goal was. A new type of goal maybe? Then I got it, that they meant to say, her next goal was Olympics. You see, it is so often that you get flash news from a completely unrelated topic while some other news topic is going on, that I actually assumed they were talking about some other person who scored some kind of nexy goal.. ;)

Bad Reporting

This is probably the nth piece I am writing about reporting in our channels.

There was a fire today close to our home on Old Airport Road in Carlton Towers (the complex that houses TGIF, IndiJoes etc). So we got an advisory from Cisco saying that we should avoid using Old Airport Road. But for folks like us who live on Old Airport Road, this is just not possible. Subhash was planning to come early  (was supposed to be a surprise) but he saw the advisory mail I forwarded and asked me to check the news channel.

Now I was seeing people being brought out, unconscious. And the voice over was saying that everyone has been evacuated. And even after 15 minutes of listening to this "every one has been evacuated" I was seeing visuals of people being brought out, people being helped to walk out, people walking out and jubiliant and so on. After 20 minutes or so I realized it was just repeated coverage (that all news channels universally so well do). What a shame! At least if you are offering fresh news and are not recycling stale news, I'd expect you to change visuals.

The highlight was this news person interviewing the COO of Manipal Hospital (to where everyone injured and suspected dead were taken). The guy on one hand kept saying we cannot disclose any numbers till we make sure, give us half an hour and the news reporter kept saying "Ok, so how many people are dead". I am like, hello, can't you understand what he is saying?

Ohh god!

Target Shahrukh?

So first it was Amitabh. No matter what anyone says, I thought what he did/wrote here was exemplary of wanting to say something nasty but not having the cheek to do it. Actually worse, trying to mask it under a completely innocent garb. Very under-handed.

Then it was Aamir. And now the media has a field day. What is Shahrukh supposed to do? Maybe start his own blog eh? Actually why does he need to bother with that. With Amitabh apologizing needlessly profusely with completely void "sorry's" (yeah, when you read it you can actually feel the emptiness and complete lack of remorse in his sorries to Shahrukh) and the media taking up the battle against Aamir on behalf of Shharukh (profusely, at least twice a day), Shahrukh doesn't need to do anything. Just concentrate on his T20 team, which I think he is doing. As stupid as they all are, the media is even more so. Man, this is what happens when you have 24 hour news channels. We go the CNN way. Fill the days and hours on tube with insipid, useless rubbish!

I really wish the media would spend more time giving star status to people who do something for the country, document the nation's little successes (like there was this handicapped guy who won in swimming and he felt neglected how no one cared for him, why doesn't the media do more stories on such people, surely we have a large populous to draw an inspiration from), focus on what is happening positively so people are inspired to do better. Cricket and Bollywood stars surely take more than deserved screen and internet space already. They don't have to be all over the daily news everyday as well.