Tell me not in mournful numbers that life is full of BREAKING NEWS

Follow us:WhatsappFacebookTwitterTelegram.cls-1{fill:#4d4d4d;}.cls-2{fill:#fff;}Google NewsLogically, it seems to make sense. If we are BREAKING news to our viewers, it's only fair that we alert them to the nature of our work. So the first couple of times 'Fear in the Sky' (a good story)goes on air, it's BREAKING NEWS. Is the excitement conveyed out of place? Maybe it isn't. Maybe my own ideas of BREAKING NEWS need to be revised. After all there are networks that are BREAKING NEWS pretty much all day! I think it's time I woke up to realize that networks, in varying degrees, are trying to dispense with the passivity admitted in and attached to perhaps a more conventional definition of BREAKING NEWS. 'BREAKING',these days, is not an adjective but a transitive verb used in the active. It's no longer merely 'We bring you news as it breaks' but also 'We break news that no other network breaks'.

But as a viewer, I am still uncomfortable. How is the viewer to make a distinction between the various kinds of BREAKING NEWS? Reactions engendered after an attack on Parliament or a shootout in Bangalore will never be the same as those stirred up by an exclusive investigative series or even an exciting MEA presser. I should hasten to add that I am, not for a moment, undermining the reportage involved. Nor am I attempting an essentialist definition of 'a particular kind of reaction' for a 'particular kind of story'. I am merely suggesting that some kinds of news generate greater levels of surprise, shock and trauma than others. BREAKING NEWS used to suggest a sudden development, that (very often) requires crisis journalism to take over. I still remember the first time we faced BREAKING NEWS at IBN. We hadn't gone on air then...the bomb explosions in Delhi took us completely by surprise on an otherwise unevenful evening. Truly BREAKING NEWS always does. I thought young IBN was very competent that evening. But I couldn't help feeling (and continue to do so every time something untoward happens) that there are moments when a network cannot drive the news but is driven by it. It can no longer 'actively' BREAK news but is compelled to (quasi-passively) just keep reporting news as it unfolds. The regular news-wheel is thrown out of gear...at least for the moment.

BREAKING NEWS flashed on the viewer's screen also creates a serious sense of disruption on the viewer's side. Should we not, therefore, use it with a little more discretion than the shepherd did? MacLuhan-ly 'cool' TV, by definition, is an engaging medium. But when heated up by excessive dramatization and stingers, there is less opportunity for the viewer's participation. The viewer might be a little flummoxed, even perhaps irritated if a network is perpetually on an adrenalin rush. It's perhaps for the same reason that stings and wipes should not be overused -TV news is more adapted to unfolding events rather than more neatly packaged products. Correct me if I am wrong -but do we not risk a cleavage between form and content if efforts to draw the attention of the viewer are overdone? The viewer should never be given the opportunity of taking news for granted. They need to be 'with' the network because it can appraise the quality and gravity of what it reports. Charles Epstein as a PR expert says something that all of us can mull over -'Public relations is about knowing how to break news and when to apply the brakes.'

first published:January 09, 2006, 22:49 ISTlast updated:January 09, 2006, 22:49 IST
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