!!! BREAKING NEWS !!!

What IS breaking news?

Is THIS breaking news? -->


Or THIS -->


Breaking News means different things to different people, or should I say, different News Channels!


Breaking News: The news that will keep even the uninterested people interested. Breaking News in India is like a gossip section in a College magazine.

Eg.: "Some lady slapped her BF on camera, while he was proposing"

or

"The family that whistles their way to fame"

Other news will have:

"Chhajjhe Par illo rani" (A cat climbed a roof)

"She's been up there for six and a half hours", says the ticker.

After an hour when I switched on the TV, the "Breaking News" read, "Aakhir khud kuud padi" (Finally, it jumped down by itself).

Lame.

Here's one more - The commissioner's DOG has gone missing! Omfg! This is a national catastrophe! Somebody get the S.W.A.T. or something!


Gone to the dogs. (The news reads - "Commissioner's dog found")

After the WTC attacks, Indian media went through a good phase. But then Sting Ops started, and every channel had their own stuff to sell and to increase their TRPs.

Let's elaborate on News..

The time line is about 3 years ONLY. It starts from 2005 til date..

Some news channels exposed politicians, while others did Sting OPs on TV actors and celebs.
After this era, the Supreme Court banned these types of sting OPs.
People like Shakti Kapoor, Aman Varma were insulted and humiliated on National Television.

Then came the "Breaking news" era. News channels wanted to change heir image to a "happening news channel". So started some channel called "India TV". It started off nicely. But then, as their TRPs started to fall badly, they started a show called "Breaking News".

Now the thing is, there's a big red coloured ticker @ the bottom saying "Breaking News" all the time from 9 pm to 11 pm. So that the viewers are glued to the TV sets. They fooled us for the first month. How they did it?


Well, it's quite simple. They started off with a news story, a very interesting one, and then switch their attention to something else. The news that they had spoken about @ 9 pm, actually surfaced 10.20 pm. This happens daily!

But NOW, they've gone personal. They have a family problem everyday, LIVE on air..
There will be a wife with 2 children sitting in one city, and her In-Laws in another city. And they started creating fights, by asking stupid questions to both of them. People crying, fighting - higher TRPs. "Let them fight", they say! A-holes.

After the family dramas "lost" their way, the News channels came up with news from the villages. News that read, "Girl marries stone", "Dog with 2 legs living with ray of hope" and stuff like "Illiterate boy starts speaking English all of a sudden".

After this era, came the Ghost" era. Yes, they told of ghosts in the villages. At the beginning of the show, they'd say that they'll show you the ghost caught on tape. But they end up showing shit, like a cloth flying from one end of the room to the other, and stories told by villagers (well rehearsed) about "ghosts".

The Ghost era was followed by "The Youtube era". This is the present era, and the most fucked up yet.

You may have seen David Blaine, Mondo Magic, Chris Angel, or any of the host of magic shows that come on TV.

We know that it's a goddamn trick.
Now what news channels do is, they go to www.youtube.com, and search for magic videos. They get some videos that read, "Chris angel flying in the air.walking on water",man goes through the great wall of china. Now, as you all know, these are tricks!

What the channels portray them as, is totally different.

The headline will read, "Kya aadmi udna seekh gaya?" (Has man learned to fly?) - This headline is referring to Chris Angel's levitation. At first, they show it as something really magical, and they say that he's actually flying, and there's nothing more to it!
They show the same clipping about a 100 times.
45 mins and 10 commercial breaks later, the channel "reveals" that the levitation is a "trick" and that "Kreees Angel" is a magician. I'm sitting there, watching this shit and thinking, "WTF is wrong with these guys?"

They have ripped off videos from Youtube like anything andshown many such videos till date.

And HOW can i possible forget the latest bakra of the news channels. You guessed it right - The Great Khali!
He made a mistake coming to India. He was made popular by WWE, a lot of people watch WWE in India. So, as it is, he was famous.

Now, the news channels come in. Their first news report on "The great khali" says that, "The Great Khali, who was working in Punjab Police, has been SUSPENDED from service". Then they had interviews of all the unrelated people in all the unrelated fields.

People who watch WWE,or those who used to watch, will laugh their ass off if they saw what Aaj Tak and India TV showed in their prime time slot. They showed matches between Khali and other wrestlers, and showed them as if they were really happening, and that he was fighting for his friggin life. They showed it like a TV serial, showing each blow THRICE. Get a life.

When he came to India, he was greeted by thousands of fans waiting at the airport. He would have been so happy!
1 week into his visit, he came to Mumbai. One of the news channel got an appointment with him - an interview in public. That news reporter was dressed up for a fight. He was asking him stupid questions, embarrassing him, humiliating him, humiliating us.

What news channels need to learn is, "SHOW THE FRIGGIN NATIONAL NEWS AND NOT FAMILY PROBLEMS THAT NO ONE CAN RELATE TO". I don' think that I could be more clear on this one.

There's loads more to write about, but I have to cut short, as I know that you'll be so bored right now!

If you are, I suggest you watch any hindi news channel. You'd be surprised that you're laughing your head off!

Best Regards!

BREAKING NEWS !! I'm ending this post!