Political news reporting and its other side political analysis are both complex and dangerous business - not in the physical sense, but dangerous to reputation and honour, as we have seen two acclaimed reporters being hauled over the coals last week.
The point is that these people were reporters - just that; But perhaps because of their seniority and better rapport with their respective owners have graduated over the years to the role of political analysts. And that has brought in the mess.
Reporting is just getting to the spot on time and talking about what is happening there. Even there Barkha Dutt has been opined to be borderline hysteric, self centred/promotional and impulsive. Less said about Vir Sanghvi, the better.
(It was nauseous to see Prannoy Roy and Barkha Dutt do a ‘pat-my-back-pat-you-back’ routine during President Obama’s visit. I counted something like six times both of them referred to their invites and presence at the State dinner and earlier reception/meet, on live TV right after the Dinner)
:-P
Actual analysis requires a lot of hard work and thinking - creative, logical and unconventional thinking at its best. It is completely different from reporting. To give an example, Barkha getting hysterical about flapping window screens during 26/11 may be laughable, but *it* *is* reporting. If the same woman had gone back on 26/12 to review the events, she would have also had to express her opinions and views, which would have been an analysis; but which would require a lot of homework.
It would be very easy to fall into the trap of ‘generating’ a news to reflect your analysis. It appears that it is precisely the same trap both of them fell into with the Radia tapes - trying to make sure that their analysis will actually reflect what will be tomorrow’s news. A trap none of us bloggers will fall prey to - since we don’t report; only analyse or in the name of analysis, just being anal.
What ever we do, what these two senior reporters have done is seriously damage the public trust in them and on the media, as a whole. Whether they tried their hand at power broking or expected freebies or influence back is not known and will not be known without a honest investigation. But it does appear that they did try to *manage* the news, atleast.
Though not in the class of this Bond villain.
:-D
The point is that these people were reporters - just that; But perhaps because of their seniority and better rapport with their respective owners have graduated over the years to the role of political analysts. And that has brought in the mess.
Reporting is just getting to the spot on time and talking about what is happening there. Even there Barkha Dutt has been opined to be borderline hysteric, self centred/promotional and impulsive. Less said about Vir Sanghvi, the better.
(It was nauseous to see Prannoy Roy and Barkha Dutt do a ‘pat-my-back-pat-you-back’ routine during President Obama’s visit. I counted something like six times both of them referred to their invites and presence at the State dinner and earlier reception/meet, on live TV right after the Dinner)
:-P
Actual analysis requires a lot of hard work and thinking - creative, logical and unconventional thinking at its best. It is completely different from reporting. To give an example, Barkha getting hysterical about flapping window screens during 26/11 may be laughable, but *it* *is* reporting. If the same woman had gone back on 26/12 to review the events, she would have also had to express her opinions and views, which would have been an analysis; but which would require a lot of homework.
It would be very easy to fall into the trap of ‘generating’ a news to reflect your analysis. It appears that it is precisely the same trap both of them fell into with the Radia tapes - trying to make sure that their analysis will actually reflect what will be tomorrow’s news. A trap none of us bloggers will fall prey to - since we don’t report; only analyse or in the name of analysis, just being anal.
What ever we do, what these two senior reporters have done is seriously damage the public trust in them and on the media, as a whole. Whether they tried their hand at power broking or expected freebies or influence back is not known and will not be known without a honest investigation. But it does appear that they did try to *manage* the news, atleast.
Though not in the class of this Bond villain.
:-D
No comments:
Post a Comment