The other day I reluctantly agreed to participate in one of those excited bordering on the hysterical television debates. Reluctantly because these are usually a waste of time, with participants struggling to get a word in edgeways, and more often than not serious debate turning into a slanging match.
I was not disappointed. With the television anchor I mean. He kept interrupting in mid-sentence or just as one started speaking to shift to someone who had joined them on air. And what was probably more distracting was that after asking you a question he would turn away to make gestures , presumably to his team at the back; or look at his messages on the mobile telephone and respond, laughing to himself while you tried to ignore the happenings in the seat next to you, and talk to the air as it were. Then without having listened to a word you had to say, he would get back into the discussion as he knew the questions he wanted to ask, he was just simply not interested in your answers.
The element of drama that has crept into news presentation on television is amazing. The professionalism of being detached, and yet concerned, from the news is over as anchors now shout themselves hoarse, attack guests for being not nationalist enough, wipe tears, and let their emotions become so loud that they totally eclipse the guests and even the issue being discussed. The inbuilt bias thus, pours out, as anchors make known their dislike of a guest they do not agree with, and their delight over having a guest who speaks their mind. There is no room for objectivity here, as news has long since turned into views and except for the headlines that are sometimes read out without too much of passion, everything else is coloured with huge dollops of bias.
It is time that television heads in particular sat down to analyse the news content of their channels with the intention of introducing some levels of professionalism into the presentation of news. The media is supposed to provide the information to the reader, or as in this case the viewer, without prejudice and allow him or her to make up their mind on the basis of this knowledge. The television channel can recourse to a visual editorial at some point in the day where its view on an issue can be communicated to the viewers, but short of that a BBC kind of format would be very welcome. After all even here there are avenues, as the BBC uses its professionalism to peddle incorrect news on occasion without ever opening itself to the charge of editorialising news. So there many ways, most of them far more sophisticated than the chest beating that passes for news discussions these days.
