Privy

NDTV was always better than the rest of the news media, until recently, but now as a part of commercialization perhaps, has joined the crowd. I can recall atleast two instances today while watching the Mumbai attacks coverage, where I really cursed NDTV and switched to Times Now.

They were showing the scenes of rescuees coming out of Oberoi and the media people trying desperately to get a word out of them. Immediately, the correspondent communicates by the phone and says “we tried to chase down the rescued people (a tone of confidence), however they were not willing to talk us (a tone of complaining) …”

Then they carried out a statement by an army chief in which he refused to give the count of casualties in the army, for obvious reasons of maintaining the morale. However, this channel reports “NSG casualty count unestimable…”

Similar thing had happened on Times Now, but the news anchor Arnab  politely advised restrain to the correspondent and the camera man. Times Now, today is the most responsible news channel (still they could improve) among the lot. I never ever switched to Aaj Tak or India TV who are glorifying the terrorist by carrying out his interview.

Dial C for cricket on Neo Sports beats Extra Innings on Sony as the worst cricketing show on TV, by far. More so because of the format, its anchor and the callers. The aim of the show is to create controversies where there are none. Though Arun Lal talks sense, the whole show is worth a miss.

The problem starts with the anchor having no cricketing knowledge, or rather a cricketing brain. Next are the callers, who are from a very naive public and then the iteraction between the bozo anchor and the bozo or the hapless caller.

Yesterday, they made a huge hue and cry on Irfan’s selection. Well, media did play its role in fueling the controversy. Our media, like any other, will never become a responsible one. I have lost all hopes even from the likes of Times Now and NDTV.

Ideally, India would prefer an in form Irfan Pathan, because I think we are forgetting the fact that he was the man of the match in the T20 world cup final, that India won on a good bowling performance. So, he will definitely get more opportunities than any other player. Mind you, he has still batted well even while being dropped. The problem in recent times has only been his bowling, for the term bowling allrounder) If he were an offspiner, people would have promoted him to be a batting allrounder instead, even with the same batting capabilities.

By the way Sachin is back and Gambhir might have to give up his opening spot (which I feel is a bad idea).