A critique of television news

The second limitation of television news: A bias against understanding
To quote a phrase made famous in Britian by John Birt in the 1970s: Television has a bias against understanding. Let us understand this with a desi example.

When television tells you about a gruesome event like the murder of Graham Staines it brings home the horror of what happened as no other medium can.  It sickens you.  It tugs at your emotions.  It stabs at your conscience.  And all of that is very welcome.
 
But what television does not do is to explain why this happened.  I don't mean who did it, how, where, when and at what time.  Those facts are easily communicated.  I mean why?  How could followers of one of the world's most peaceful religions turn upon a single man and his two children?  How could we - a people who think of ourselves as tolerant, welcoming, loving - kill so ruthlessly and mercilessly?
 
These are questions of context, of background, of history.  In the Graham Staines case they were answered - if at all they were - by a judicial commission.  No doubt newspapers don't tackle them adequately either - although in the op-ed pages they try - but then newspapers don't make the same impact when they report such tragedies.  Television does.  Worse that impact pushes people towards easy conclusions.  A rush to judgement follows.
 
Two consequences stand out : we all think we know the truth behind Graham Staines' grisly death and the guilty party - if I can use that emotive term - feels hard done by.  But the truth is embedded in a context television news does not and did not explore and, therefore, most of us have not found out about.  And the guilty party may well be guilty but we have not as yet fully established its guilt nor, more importantly, understood it.
 
Inadequate appreciation of the limitations of television and its inherent tendency to sensationalise, coupled with the fact that news on television is both more frequent and accessible and often has greater impact, can lead to unintended distortions or imperfect understanding.  In such circumstances news and views can become perilously mixed up.
 
Dealing with distortions
I, now, attempt at finding some solutions.
The first lesson: Reportage is not enough
I promised hesitant answers and, hesitantly, I shall attempt them.
 
The first lesson is that reportage is not enough.  We need more context, more explanation, more background.  In turn that means we need more specialist correspondents - more correspondents with dedicated fields to furrow - and fewer fire-fighters.  It also means that for most important developments television news needs to supplement reports of what's happened with analysis of why and what it means.  In other words, news analysis has to become part of news reportage.
 
The second lesson: We need more current affairs
The second lesson is that we need more current affairs.  News on its own is not enough.  We need programmes that go deeper, wider, further.  I know that in India, at least in theory, we have them but they fail to serve their purpose.  I include my own in that judgement unreservedly.  Such programmes work when they take their subject more seriously than the personalities participating in them.  In India, it's the other way around.  We need the cold analysis of current affairs.  Instead we have the spectacle and tamasha of clashing view points.  We need to shed light but end up generating heat.
 
The third lesson: Finally, television needs the sort of wisdom that comes with age.  It has in plenty enthusiasm, dedication, tireless striving, and ceaseless vigil.  All of that is remarkable in an industry so young.  Let that not be gainsaid.  But it does not have the capacity to reflect, to pronounce wisely, to be sagacious, to speak with gravitas.  No doubt such qualities are difficult to acquire but their absence is telling.
 
Of course there's a lot more that can and should be done but my intention is to raise questions, focus attention and, hopefully, start a debate.  For that purpose, I think, I have written enough.

The author, Karan Thapar is a television anchor.