In the good old days, we did not have too many media for news. The internet was still under studies of educational institutes and government labs. A solitary channel in India was our only window to the world of events. It was (ably) supported by radio and print media. I always used to wonder how come all the news in the world snugly fit in that 30 minute time slot for news, or the 12 pages of the newspaper!

All news in those days were divided into segments – so government news was always displayed first, followed by international news, business news and share market, and then sports news, with cultural news in the end. There was hardly any news on movies and social parties.

However very soon the TV airwaves in India were opened to a number of news channels. Unfortunately for them they only had one planet – Earth – to cover. And narrowing down the “catchment” area for news was the fact that the were all based out of the same country – India. They had to come up with new news every now and then to prove that they were the best, and fastest, and honest, and what not.

Ever since this idea of being the fastest and most exclusive first germinated in the minds of the news channels, we have seen news articles and coverages on all and sundry topics. At first it was good, because as they say, the more eyes, the more views. But very soon these eyes began to obscure the very view they were trying to portray. As the race to become the numero uno news channel took off, these channels have come up with various ideas to promote themselves. Some claim to have ‘exclusive’ footages of some incidents (never mind that the same footage is used by all the news channels), others began the trend of ‘breaking news’ wherein that news was being broadcast to common public for the very first time.

With so many events to cover, and so many prominent personalities under scrutiny, the news channels clearly hold the cards when it comes to showing the news to public in the right light. As such they have to be extremely careful about what they show because it is used by people to form opinions about incidents. They own it to the people to show all current issues in the correct light – whether it is price hike, inflation, team failure in some obscure sporting event or government stand on issues of national or international importance.

“News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.”

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