Why is it that Hindi news channels must present news reports the way you would a B-grade Hindi masala film? Is it to shake up our inert populace like Satyamev Jayate tries to do with its liberal doses of drama? Sadly for the channels, Aamir’s show at least discusses relevant and pertinent issues, and can be forgiven its dramatic overtones. The so-called issues covered by our Hindi news channels though, are poor cousins to those on the much-loved and much-pilloried SMJ.

So what’s with the drama? Is it just a bad habit, or a not-so-clever way to gloss over the fact that the channels don’t really have much by way of ‘news’? I hoped to get a clearer understanding of what passes off as news on these channels, thanks to losing a bet and having to watch primetime news on two Hindi news channels.

The primetime coverage on Zee News and Star News on Monday and Tuesday followed an interesting pattern. While Zee News decided to pass off some strange inanities as news during its primetime show on Monday, Star News took on the mantle on Tuesday.

Zee News has a ‘Non-stop at 9’ segment which seems an excuse for packaging any and every national and international news they might have laid their hands on, since the important news is saved for the 9:30 pm slot. On Monday, this meant ranting about a British survey on how mobile phone owners have a phobia of losing their handsets or missing a call. How is a British survey on such an obscure and irrelevant matter, even pertinent to India? Well, if it’s not pertinent, Zee News will make it pertinent or at least so ludicrous that you’re compelled to watch the report. Through the report, the channel used chilling music – akin to Ramsay Brothers films – and repeatedly used the word darr while describing the horror of life with a mobile phone. One really shouldn’t underestimate the creative minds behind news reporting.

Star News, which still hasn’t taken on its new nomenclature of ABP News, had slightly more relevant news stories. Well, it’s all relative. The channel decided to focus on Shah Rukh Khan’s so-called apology for his behaviour at Wankhede stadium. While they rightly reported that he had apologised to his kids and not the MCA, all sense ended there. Soon the drama overtook the reporting and an anchor decided to take viewers on a simulated walk-through from the Wankhede gate through which SRK entered the pitch after that fateful KKR match 11 days ago (As you can see, the drama is infectious).

They also reported on what Shah Rukh calls his lucky cheerleaders, four girls – his daughter, his brother-in-law’s daughter and the daughters of Chunkey Pandey and Sanjay Kapoor. They could have questioned Pandey and Kapoor’s interest in cricket or interviewed them. But hey, it’s far more fun to discuss Bollywood has-beens’ kids.

The next night, Zee News had surprisingly good – if short – coverage of the day’s news on ‘Non Stop at 9’. They questioned how Mamata Banerjee justified the expenditure on KKR’s victory rally on the one hand, while on the other she was asking for funds from the Central government. And just as I was marvelling at their news reportage, they took a perfectly important subject and made a spectacle of it. The channel did a follow-up story on a sansanikhez khulasa about malpractices in India’s medical drugs trade. They reported on a maut ki prayogshala which, once you’d got past the dramatic description, is actually a drug trial hub of sorts in Ahmedabad where economically-backward people are being used as guinea pigs.

They also did have an interesting report on how the constituents under Akhilesh Yadav, Mulayam Singh and Azam Khan in Uttar Pradesh have 24-hour electricity despite the rest of the state suffering severe power cuts. Since it was an interesting and relevant report though, it was given hardly any air time.

Their 9:30pm segment took a bird’s eye view of the reaction to the petrol price hike all over the country. And showed us an anti-petrol price hike rally by a party – with workers on motorcycles. The irony seemed to escape the channel, though.

The most fabulous display of creativity and drama was of course on Star News’ 9:30 segment which reported on the Prime Minister visiting Bahadur Shah Zafar’s grave in Yangon. (Ashutosh Gowariker could take lessons in set decoration and production from Star News.) The channel decided to go Mughal with a vengeance, with a dramatic re-enactment of a bedecked emperor reciting couplets lamenting his state. And, they had a number of correspondents standing in what looked like historic locations, each reciting just one line echoing Zafar’s sentiments. At one point, the film Dor’s theme song ‘Ye Honsla’ was played.

We laugh. So that we don’t cry.

Image Source [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nxj4vsj4j4&list=UUPXiPOIozbcVhhArYmXsbAw&index=5&feature=plcp]