"Ravi! Lets go to our desks. We have been here in the canteen for almost an hour for the morning coffee. If we sit for another 15 mins, lunch will be served. So, lets go to our desks now, work hard for 15 mins and come back again for lunch :) " " Two mins boss. Look there is a breaking news scroll in the TV. Let's see what it is and then leave". Ravi pointed to one of the LED TVs in the canteen where the scroll read "The AYZK party launched yesterday has got around 10 new members. Is this a sign of change in the political landmass?" in the middle of various scrolls like 'The day dawned first on our TV office' , ' The country is fortunate to have 'The Breaking' channel'.
There is nothing breaking(obviously. New political party is anyways a daily affair nowadays) about this news. The only thing that comes somewhere close to the usage of 'breaking' is those self-proclaiming scrolls appearing 73 times(more than your heart rate)a minute, seeing which you might get tempted to break the remote and sometimes the TV .
Eye-catching graphics, use of animations to recreate and show what could have happened during a disaster and the pace at which the news is reported are certainly things that I hope everyone would appreciate in the modern news reporting. But without all this, I still remember how eagerly we used to wait for the clock to tick 8:30 pm to watch the DD news in the regional language. Though we would have hoped for better than the plain background with the monotonous rendering of the news with file pictures and clips, I believe some of us are having a thought that atleast the news was reported those days and not that a news is created, interpreted, judged and branded like now in few channels.
People are busy 'breaking' news in their channels all through the day now, whereas they use the evening/dinner time to debate(That is how it is called) on the one news that would garner more interest. The dos and don'ts in these debates may look something like "Do not allow anyone to talk more than 30 seconds without interruption; Do tell that you are asking this as someone wants to know; And the last thing 'Shout!' (Read it in the same time as Cap America told Hulk in Avengers I -Smash :) )"
Gone are the days when elections were fought in campaigns, now the actual fight during elections happen in channels in reporting the most inaccurate lead status while counting. Gosh! The power that news reporting wields now is so great that they can make or break any individual's career through one interview/debate.
Though there is some blame attached to the people who serve us these, we who consume this also are to be blamed. After all, we the people look for entertainment in news channels and not news/facts . We get what we wish!
