10 hours of continuous TV watching and my winner is....

NDTV24X7

After hours of back-breaking research into comparative election coverage(fine, it was just the first two hours!), I conclude that NDTV 24X7 came out a marginal winner in the contest for the least annoying TV channel covering the election roller-coaster. NDTV's graphics were updated at a faster rate, were more clearer and the analysis was actually a bit more sober than that of its nearest rival CNN-IBN. The latter, which was affected by a keen desire to prove itself in its first general election, ended up being a bit too shrill and the analysis sometimes distracted the viewer from the updates that were coming in. Times Now was unfortunately a poor third as it lagged behind in speed and analysis.

Of course, all was not rosy with NDTV as well. One got to see Barkha Dutt's face contorting in every way possible pretty often as the camera was slow in moving away from her face while she was communicating with her team plus there were quite a few technical glitches. But these were only the superficial(and mildly entertaining) issues that the media exhibited. The real ones perhaps lie much deeper.

It is pretty obvious that while many of the exit polls predicted the direction of the results, they often went completely wrong in the specifics(which is why they failed to get the numbers). This could partly be the result of some genuine nervousness after the debacle in 2004(NDTV psephologist Dorab Sopariwala looked like he would have a heart attack till the results began coming out). Another reason could be the fact that national channels have abandoned the concept of reporting from the ground and often depend on correspondents who are stationed at state capitals and have access to political leaders alone. Thus the failure to see trends in UP and West Bengal, which considering their magnitude, should have been quite a bit obvious.

It is easy to understand why news channels are slowly abandoning the kind of reporting necessary to predict swings like these. Varun's Gandhi's antics are any day more entertaining and 'news-worthy' than shifts in the voting patters in eastern UP and it saves so much man-power when you can attribute the decimation of the CPI(M) to 'rural discontent' without exactly defining what it is. It is important that channels and media watchers keep these issues in mind and frequently remind themselves that getting the trends right is no achievement in itself when significant developments are completely missed out during the course of analysis.

Other mundane points.
1) Everyone seems ready to applaud and bid a warm farewell to L.K.Advani. This is utter crap. However much he 'tried' to modify his stance, India cannot forgive the man who led the march to demolish the Babri Masjid.
2) Karan Thapar is an awesome interviewer. He is also a bad anchor. The drama involved in his exclaiming mundane phrases like 'vote percentage' is seriously off-putting.
3) Barkha Dutt and Vikram Chandra are a very bad pair. They frequently kept tripping up each other. Me thinks there is some serious power struggles on at NDTV.
4) Times Now needs some decent support staff for Arnab Goswami. Poor fellow seems sagging from all that pressure.
5) Why was Lord Meghnad Desai a part of the CNN-IBN coverage? Why not Mandira Bedi the next time then?
6) Amidst Rajdeep Sardesai's brazen attempts to promote CNN-IBN, Prannoy Roy is more balanced any day.

The election season is as good as any to give out a spree of Katrina Awards and there are many who have qualified for the said honor, from the Amma of the South to Comrade Karat. But then, I look back and realize that since the award committee itself was living in quite a deluded world(I was quite sure of a hung parliament), it is perhaps time to forgive and forget in the best traditions of this election season. Chilllll!! :)

PS. A modified version of this post was first published at desicritics
PS2. I just found out that I was not the only person to have the bright idea of comparing the performance of news channels. The media watchdog website, The Hoot has a significantly more comprehensive piece on the coverage. But then, the Hoot is a media watchdog website. This is just the dailypheesh ;)

The Katrina Awards

The citation

We are proud to present the Katrina Award to:
There is something very ironic yet fascinating in the fall of a 'chosen One'. That's because 1) the fall of a chosen One is a direct blow to the authority who made the choice and 2)there is often this inconspicuous and bumbling individual who ends up being the chosen One and it's really amusing seeing him/her strutting on a stage he/she does not belong to. That's the long and short of Uddhav Thackeray. Never a keen politico at any point of time, Uddhav has been thrust right into the centre of a controversy which has exposed his incapabilities as never before. There is, on one hand, the vast and tall legacy of the Thackeray Sr. There is, on the other hand, Raj Thackeray(handsomely aided and abetted by the Congress and the NC) who is stealing all the available thunder. One feels sorry as Uddhav is increasingly shut out from all public exposure, his statements(when he makes them ie) hardly provoking any response. Contrast this with Raj who has Maharashtra in flames and the rest of India fuming. On second thoughts, it's a relief. One Thackeray at a time is more than enough for India.


Image Credits

The Katrina Awards

The citation

We are proud to present the award to:

Uma Bharati was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, one of the largest states in India. However her true glory days were in the early 1990s as she(along with certain others) rode the crest of a huge wave on the way to power at the centre(they also demolished the Babri Masjid and instigated a huge wave of riots on the way). She had emerged, at that time, as an iconic representative of "female hindutva" and that too at a very young age. However it's the tragedy of youth that unless he/she dies young, a youth icon often fades into oblivion, or worse, infamy. Uma Bharati spent the rest of her life in an increasingly impossible attempt to stay relevant and match up to the role she had carved out for herself during the Babri Masjid movement. There were some bright spots, her chief ministership and the flag raising controversy being some but on the whole, it was a losing battle. She finally gave up in 2004 and was thrown out of the party. Ever since, life has just grown harder. So can you blame her if she did this?

However, the once-fiery sadhvin found out the hard way that you can't beat common sense!

The Katrina Awards

The citation


We are proud to present the Katrina Award to:

Despite what chauvinists would say, Kashmir does not comfortably fit the position of the crown jewel of the "Wonder that is India". It is true that Kashmir's accession to India was as valid in legal terms as that of many other princely states, where the wishes of the people were not consulted. But it is also true that few states have been the site of so many controversies and violence as J&K has. J&K has also had the misfortune of possessing and having to interact with leaders who have had no sense of the complexities of the issue.Some members of this glorious group have been almost deliberately blind whereas others have stumbled and bumbled along like bulls in a china shop. Our awardee of the day belongs to the second category. An absolute lack of foresight in managing his own cabinet, a bureaucracy led by a seemingly diabolic-ex-governor, the PR of the government and the protests on the street has ensured that Azad has come out with an egg on his face, communal forces on either sides of the spectrum have got huge breathers and whatever superficial normality that Kashmir seemed to be limping to, is again, a thing of the past. Well since he was the hand-picked by 10 Janpath, I guess it was bound to happen.

The Katrina Awards

The citation

We are proud to present the Katrina Award to:
There might be disagreements on this, but Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss reminds me of Don Quixote. At a time when serious questions are being posed about the ability of existing institutions to face the challenges of the coming years, the doyen of our health policy is busy advising Shah Rukh Khan on why he should not smoke on screen, attacking the movie industry for lionizing alcohol and trying every trick in the book to unseat the Director of AIIMS. I personally, have already started preparing for the day when the HN-51 combines with some human virus strain and bird-flu morphs into the next big epidemic because I sure, when that happens, Mr.Ramadoss will be endorsing Guru Sri Sri Sidhanda Shankar Ganesh Maharaj and his naturopathic treatment.

The Katrina Award

The citation.

We are proud to present this week's Katrina Award to:
It seems that Katrina's(the other one) association with the Royal Challengers is rubbing off on the team's skipper. Rahul Dravid is absolutely clueless on the field.His feet aren't moving, the only bat and ball contact is when he is dismissed (fine! I am exaggerating). One feels sorry for this great cricketer who had time and again adapted his game for the team. Now he just looks completely at sea

Katrina Awards

Readers(haha!) should know by now that Andrew Sullivan,despite belonging to a completely different political persuasion, has been quite a prominent influence on my blog ,specifically in terms of style. So no surprises as he and the Razzies inspire my latest innovation.

THE KATRINA AWARD

The citation:

Sheer cluelessness in the face of given circumstances and a complete inability to respond to the same. Special mention for those whose (in)action causes irreparable harm to institutions or individuals.

In case people misunderstand, the reference is not to the famed hurricane and the US Govt's complete and utter incapacity but to our very own Katrina Kaif and her "acting"

We are proud to present the first winner of the Katrina Award:

He is out of the picture but the havoc he and his IHF wreaked will haunt Indian and world hockey for some time. The jury is still out on whether he was just incompetent and stubborn or malicious as well but either way he deserves the award.