TV Newsance 302: How TV anchors turned Raja Raghuvanshi’s murder into a low-budget soap opera

This week, as astronaut Shubhanshu Sharma took the country forward by going to space, TV news anchors took the country centuries back with their coverage of Raja Raghuvanshi’s murder. TV news turned the murder of an innocent man, allegedly committed by his wife Sonam, into a media spectacle. 

We were subjected to astrologers on live television explaining that the position of planets in Sonam’s kundali prompted her to kill her husband Raja. Meanwhile, instead of questioning the UP government on the Mahakumbh Mela death toll, anchors chose to question innocent mothers of people involved in the case. 

As anchors turned men’s rights activists, pitted mother against mother, and peddled crazy unverified theories on the murder and concocted plots for B-grade dramas, the true casualty this week was common sense and sensitivity. 

Watch.