Channel Surf – Times Now

Have you ever noticed just the tickers in a news broadcast? Keep the sound on mute and only read the words that appear on those bars that keep shooting in and out of the news broadcast? It can lead to some interesting insights.

Last night, as I surfed my way to Times Now at 9 o’clock I realised that thanks to a glitch on my TV, the volume for that particular channel was gone. Ironical that the volume of the high-decibel Newshour had disappeared. I immediately decided that this was the channel I was going to watch – because this time, I could actually watch it.

The words on the red and blue bars were the only source of information of what was going on. The first thing that struck me is how much screen space these bars take up, and not just on this particular channel either. They are there on the top and bottom. With words in simple font and in bold capital letters. Why isn’t just discussing the news enough? Does anyone really pay attention to these many tickers when news is being ripped apart on the shows?

From the bars I gathered that Times Now had landed an interview with Praful Patel and it was a big deal. He and Sharad Pawar have been in the centre of a controversy with their ally, the Congress, and Times Now has been insisting for the past few days that there is more to the dissent than meets the eye. It successfully conveyed this through big bars at the bottom which stated – “Truce over scams? Real deal kept secret?” The tickers weren’t really statements, so much as comments. Not objective. But very subjective. You immediately knew what angle (or slant) the channel was going to take on the story.

It can be an interesting Study in Slant to observe the tickers of two channels covering the same issue. But that’s for another day.

Since I was watching the broadcast minus audio, it was left to me to decipher the news through the text. As the host interviewed Mr Patel for what must have been 20 minutes, I could understand almost all the questions Mr Goswami must be asking as they just kept appearing on the tickers one after the other. Interestingly, they didn’t carry the interviewee’s responses. Only one bar, on top, which usually carries the name of the segment, had one quote by Mr Patel in between the questions and comments of the channel, saying – “Don’t link truce to scams”. Also, without any audio to distract you, the gesticulation indulged in by Mr Goswami seem even more pronounced. His entire stance and temperament could be understood by simply noticing his hand movements and the postures he struck.

Which we had fittingly captured in our comic – http://www.newslaundry.com/2012/02/arnab-caught-in-the-posture/

Coming back to the tickers, the next item on Newshour was Team Anna’s latest fast. It had around 5-6 panelists on the debate, and mercifully, I was spared the shouting that must have followed. However, I did note that Renuka Chowdhury is equally gifted in gesticulating. This time too, the channel’s questions on Team Anna’s relevance and whether they had diluted their core demands and issues filled the tickers. There were also tweets giving differing opinions on the issue. This display of tweets is a trend on other channels too, and one wonders if it is a way to impress on the viewers the ‘reach’ of the channel. But it hardly qualifies as news.

The next time you watch the news, do try this at home. Turn off the volume and see if you can get the gist of the news by just reading the assorted text that adorns your TV screens. Trust me, not only will it be a more informative exercise, it might also be more meditative.