News u need to know about the news

Familiar Fact: Indian megaserials are over dramatized.

Some critics believe that no other kind of TV show on earth can match up to these sobfests, leave alone surpass them..especially in parameters like ridiculousness, depression inducing ability and outright stupidity..

These critics are obviously wrong.. Perhaps they're not acquainted with our news shows!!

News shows are what people used to call news programmes earlier.. where first they flashed the top stories of the day, and went on to report facts and events..
Today, news shows are structured almost in the same manner.. Only that u have inferences, judgements and extended editions instead..

In news programmes, the reporter was the politer one, though the people being interviewed had the freedom to be crass and unrefined in their speech..
Whereas, in news shows, the reporter/ presenter speaks the loudest.. with the power of media freedom bestowed upon him, he believes he has the right to interrupt and provoke, to be vitriolic and acerbic, to taunt and insult.. while the ones being interviewed need to do their bit of talking adroitly.. the tone, the language and the degree of euphemism hold their voices down..

Worse, news shows are usually politically biased, and almost always iconoclastic..

When there's little news to be reported, mountains are made out of molehills..
When there's a lot of news to be reported, they prioritize the stories as per their interests, as per the viewership anticipated, as per the degree of controversy involved in the issue, as per how much the issue can be spiced up further..

When there's bad news to be reported, they reprocess and enrich the facts.. sending disturbing signals all over the place..
When there's good news to be reported, it'll be flashed around in spaces like 'Defining Moments', '1-minute roundup' etc, if the story is lucky enough..

These news shows breed on controversies, crime, accidents and disasters.. The rhetoric is negative, and worse than reality..

The extremely powerful and the extremely powerless are the only ones who matter.. The common man gets into the show occasionally by way of street opinions on issues that may have little to do with his life..
Even sports news hasn't been spared. More about the controversy. Less about the sport.

Looks like the news shows are a flourishing industry.. their belief-system is somewhat simple.. keep people glued to the show.. bombard them with morbid, macabre images of the world.. remind them that they're not safe.. that humanity is degrading.. and that no government is doing anything about it..

The new face in business- Demagogy