A TV journalist from a reputed channel was fighting with the corporate communications head to ensure that the managing director of the company spoke to that TV channel before he did to the other one. “We are not having him if he is going to speak to xx first,” she said belligerantly
It was amusing and scary, at once because she was unrelenting and threatening at the same time.
At an awards function organised by a leading channel, the head of the channel was asked to say a few words. He spoke about everybody’s favourite topic–anchor investors.
“When the markets are bullish, no one thinks about these things but when the markets begin to go down, people start thinking that the media is manipulating the markets in some way. We, in the media tend to be soft targets because everything we say or do affects the market in some way,” he said.
Anchor investors are television anchors who may influence the market by the comments they make on TV. These anchors/ journalists may have positions in certain stocks and it may be in their interest to jack up the prices. The issue came into focus after former Sebi Chairman, M Damodaran commented about them, in an interview to Indian Express’s Shekar Gupta.
One could hardly understand why the television channel head was so defensive particularly since most TV channels have gone to great pains to reveal how unbiased they are in the business of news.
Television journalism scares me because it is everything that I do not want to be– the lights, the make up, the ready quips, the copied stories, the unhealthy eagerness, the breaking news cult, the award functions.
The medium is beautiful but it is at the mercy of its practioners who ruthlessly exploit it. The broad countryside of India is a treasure trove of stories but few people venture beyond the metros. I am not saying I am the exception but sometimes I think if getting into financial journalism right away was a mistake.
A rookie reporter is best off starting his career as a general reporter. Lurking around courts, police stations, railway stations, slums, posh cafes at all times of day and night teaches you a lot. Better than the PR-driven journalism that financial journalists practise.
In the financial world, most things are driven by the photo opportunity or the newsspace that something can hog. Everything is edited, snipped and cut so as to present the best possible picture to the reader. Are newspapers sycophants or presenters of news?
A bunch of print houses are launching business dailies. I do not know if there is enough room for these many. It would be interesting to study whether the average length of a news story has gone up over the last 3 years. I am sure it has because I find print increasingly leaning towards longer stories–the kind that only appeared in the magazines, earlier.
