Zee decides to give samman to news!

Sat, May 10 12:50 AM

On Thursday night, Zee News announced that it was going back to 'real news.' The slightly surly but honest answer to that would be: 'About time.

' Over the last couple of years, much of the 'news' we've seen on Zee News has included the following: (a) TV crews on a nation-wide hunt for bhoots (b) tantriks lurking around in shamshaan ghats, engaged in uncomprehending rituals that you have no desire to comprehend (c) various sadhus and babas telling us about the effect of 'shani' on our lives (d) blanket coverage of reality TV stars (e) more of the same. So when Subhash Chandra appeared on Zee News and announced that the channel was now going to give 'samman' to news, I couldn't believe my ears.

(No more 'specials' on the Amitabh-Shatru fight-followed-by-patch up-followed-by-fight? No more non-stop coverage of child prodigies or reality TV contestants?) Next came Punya Prasun Vajpayee (who has moved from Aaj Tak to Sahara Samay to Zee) and gave a very, very, very long introduction to the channel's new philosophy. What I gathered, in short, was this: Zee News is going to become a proper hard news channel (though the channel's new tagline - 'Zara sochiye' - doesn't sound very hard news-ish.

Presumably they're talking about how their stories will force viewers to think, since the stories will be, well, thought-provoking). The inaugural story of the 'new' Zee News centred around political violence in Kannur, where RSS party workers have attacked and maimed CPM workers and vice versa.

Called Vote Ka Agneepath, it was in the format of interviews with the victims. I saw about half an hour, which - despite Vajpayee's claims that this was not a 'khulaasa' - did begin in a rather 'sansanikhez' way.

Half an hour is quite a long time for a story, but in those 30 minutes I didn't learn much more than what I just said: that cadres of both parties attack each other brutally. Even as a human interest story about how lives and families are ruined because of gruesome political violence, I had a sense of 'incompleteness.

' The next day, I watched the 2pm bulletin. The lead story was on what would happen to Harbhajan Singh.

Justice Nanavati had arrived in Ahmedabad, so had Harbhajan and so had the media. So far so good.

But I have two questions. First, the report seemed very stretched; it could have been wrapped up in about half the time.

The same points were repeated again and again. In fact - and this is not a problem peculiar to Zee News but applies pretty much across the board - most anchors and reporters have severe verbal diarrhoea.

They talk and talk and talk till you're exhausted listening to them. They don't seem to have ever heard of words like 'clarity,' 'brevity,' 'concise,' 'precise' etc.

All that non-stop talk is usually full of jumbled-up, confused sentences. They say the same things many times in different ways.

Second, sure, channels have to show visuals with their reports. And yes, they only have a set of visuals.

But must we see the same loop twenty five times? In this particular report, for instance, when the anchor and reporter were discussing whether Harbhajan Singh would be penalised under Level 4, couldn't the channel have gone in for a quick graphic explaining the different Levels in the ICC code of conduct for cricketers? There were a couple of graphics but they basically spelt out the main points (which was a good thing, I suppose, since it was difficult to cut through the verbosity). But if Zee News is serious about becoming a proper news channel, I can say with all sincerity that I haven't heard better news in a long time.

And I'm seriously looking forward to watching it over the next few weeks. And finally, IPL (impossible to get away from it, much as I may try).

Is it my imagination or is Set Max deliberately keeping visuals of the cheerleaders to a minimum? Maybe everyone should consider putting them in salwar kameezes.

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