Dr. Rafeeq Masoodi
I read with interest Shri Sanjay Pandita’s article “The Changing Face of Television Journalism.” in your esteemed weekly..He correctly notes that voices have become louder, pauses more dramatic, and presentation now competes with news itself.
But with due respect, I hold a different view. The problem is not that news has become performance. The problem is that news has lost its factory.
Let me explain from my own journey. In 1986, when I was Programme Executive in Radio Kashmir looking after Yuvavani Kashmiri & music programmes, and later in Doordarshan Srinagar and Delhi, news was not produced by one anchor. It was produced by a chain:
Reporter in the field → Sub-editor → Producer → Music/Visual archive → Newsreader.
The newsreader was the last;person in the chain, not the first. His composure came from the confidence that someone else had verified the fact. His clarity came from the fact that he had a script vetted by three people.A Programmer was always No 1,on the top ,in the Driver’s seat rest all were to lend him support to produce an excellent content,they,Engineers & establishment were to subsidiary to him but with Ministery ,Babus & self interested people knit web & threw them out ..which included inter rivalry of programmers also…in a way suicidal..for them.
Today, that chain is broken. In most private channels, the anchor is the reporter, the producer, the sub-editor and the newsreader all in one, within 10 minutes, for 9 PM. When one person has to do four jobs, he has no time to verify he has to perform. Performance becomes a substitute for process.
Secondly, Pandita Ji asks whether channels are entertaining or audiences are demanding entertainment. My answer is different: Audiences are not demanding entertainment, they are demanding certainty in an uncertain time. When a Kashmiri shawl-seller in Pulwama or a student in Anantnag watches TV today, he is not looking for information alone there is too much information on his phone. He is looking for someone to tell him “What does this mean for me? Should I worry or not?”
Old Doordarshan never gave that certainty. We said “Here is the fact, you decide.”Today’s anchor says ,“Here is what you should feel angry, proud, indignant.”_ That is not journalism, that is emotional labour. And audience accepts it because no one else is providing context.
Third, the article blames commercial pressure. True, but incomplete. Doordarshan was never free from pressure we had government pressure. Private TV has market pressure. The difference is: Government pressure asked us to hide something; Market pressure asks channels to invent urgency where there is none. Both kill credibility, but in different ways.
So what is the solution? Not to ask anchors to lower their voice. That is cosmetic. The solution is to rebuild the newsroom:
Separate the presenter from the reporter. Let the field reporter remain nervous, as I was when I entered Hazrat Ghamgeen Sahib’s mud house in Ratnipora in 1986. Nervousness brings humility.
Bring back the Bahi-Khata culture. In Kashmir we call the red ledger Bahi-Khata. Before broadcast, we had to maintain Bahi-Khata of sources. Today we have no Bahi-Khata, only TRP sheet.
Return to Yuvavani model. Yuvavani succeeded because we let young poets, mystics, students speak not because I spoke. Television journalism will regain credibility when it lets the people of Kashmir, not the studio, speak.
I do not believe television journalism has degraded because it became dramatic. It became dramatic because it became lonely, a single anchor, without a newsroom,
Trust was not built by composure. Trust was built by witness.
That is my different view.
The author is former Additional Director General, Doordarshan
