KOCHI: The reluctance to write ‘journalist’ against the occupation column in my daughter’s school diary is something that has been increasing every passing June. Be it at a party, during a pleasure trip or while entertaining a guest - the baggage that has to be borne for being in this profession has only been growing heavier in Kerala, and one feels: “Spare the child at least.”
Technology has helped add pace to journalism and, quite obviously, widened its reach in the state, which has been steadily supplying mediapersons for years to news organisations across India, the Gulf and beyond. Unlike in the past, when a few journalism institutes ran courses, an increasing number of colleges churn out aspiring journalists these days, with ‘communication’ getting a lot of takers.
But, of late, journalists’ image has taken a severe beating. One has to deal with the tag whenever stepping out, akin to a car that as suffered a nasty dent on its rear. The flak is mostly directed at Malayalam TV channel anchors. It’s non-negotiable that no anchor has the right to spoil your drawing-room peace, but it would be a kind gesture to spare a thought for those who are out on the field, day in, day out, to produce reportage.
Don’t you ‘book’ the remote well in advance on the day when election results are out? Or, keep the 24x7 channels on for hours together when rain confines you for days to your house? Or, run out of patience when it takes a few extra minutes to access a channel on hearing that a jilted lover used a gun to kill a teen girl from your neighbourhood in broad daylight?
The demand is incredibly high, and, in some cases, only visuals satiate the craving. Then why blame the channels alone for the hullabaloo? In our tiny state, which goes to bed by 10pm and has topographical limitations to explode compared with its peers, news channels should be finding it hard to see off a day. Barring the few ‘big’ days in a year, the reporters are forced to harp too much on the trivial or little “breaks” they get in the mornings.
And, as the crew chases a CD all the way to Coimbatore, or waits for hours for an audio clip of an accused outside her room, we sit glued to the TV. From the time when DD Malayalam used to provide us with the day’s happenings in brief evening news bulletins, we currently have a dozen channels covering the length and breadth of the state 24x7. (I am not even touching upon their national and international coverage.)
Amid all the heated debates and hot air, old-schoolers like me believe news of real value has been missing. And that’s worrisome.
In Kerala, where everything - right from one’s breakfast to the bedspread - gets political hues, isn’t our obsession for politics (the masala and all) one reason why channels fail to offer quality news.
Considering that crores of rupees were spent on the launch of these channels, and more on their operations, one can’t blame them for the maddening TRP overdrive. It’s we who don’t offer scope for change. We have ourselves to blame.