WEB OF 24 HOURS NEWS CYCLE
Imagine being in late 1980's, waiting for the prime time news with your family, sitting around the TV excited to hear the breaking news from Shami Narang.
But nowadays, there is no waiting. Open the TV and boom, variety of channels broadcasting same stories under different headlines. As the media is recognized as the fourth pillar of the democracy, they are lowering the levels of these pillars as due to the 24 hour format news channels are now more concerned with the TRP's rather than the basic informative character of the journalism. As we saw, during the Sushant Singh Rajput case all the channels broke the privacy of a family when they entered his family’s home to interview his father. Not only that, almost all the channels ran his case 24/7 as breaking news as to get him justice but eventually the case took a big turn and is still being continued as a drug case.
With the advent of cable television came the inception of 24/7 hour format which provided the news all day long, as we could get minute by minute updates of any on going event at any corner of the world. Likewise, during the 2020 Presidential election of USA, Indian news channels broadcasted all the details and updates of the every minute happening.
Due to the then 24 hour format and now the technological advancement and introduction of Internet, newspapers no longer are available to report any breaking news as every news is ready to be seen due to the these two easily available platforms. Even many newspapers agencies now have online portal to stay in the business.
As the format was introduced , the necessity of running channels were provoked too. Due to which the channels introduced new programmes like Debates , Panel Discussions, Talk Shows.
These talk shows or debates helps gains nothing rather all the panelists do is yelling and playing the blame game between the opposite party representatives.
NDTV editor-in chief, Rajat Sharma introduced the infamous "Aap ki Aadalat" which initially produced great TRP and support of the people as they started getting to know about their on screen "heros".
Many times news channels occupies their slots through hours long entertainment news like in laws related stories or slots with shows such as SBS in which they tell whether Naira saved Kartik from the accident or going on and on about celebrities pregnancy. They broadcast stories which doesn't affect the viewers life in any way, like even if Taimur is enjoying his ride on horse what do we gotta do with it?
Worthy news doesn't change within minutes so news channels now prefer to broadcast unworthy ones with them as well. They present same stories under different sensational headlines to grab the attention of their viewers, there was headlines like "Sushant why did you hit a six so soon?" Or "Sara ka sara bhanda foota" such news are not only cringy but also are to quoted under yellow journalism.
But, with the help of 24 hour format many socially ignored issues are now being in the spot light are and discussed actively which were earlier left behind seeing the greater good. But now such stories are reaching out to the people, for instance, the stories of love jihad were earlier never discussed but now due to the online protest and recognition of the root of it, states like Uttar Pradesh are establishing new rules to eradicate such cruelty.
Now, due to the race of 24 hour news, many news channels run along the TRP's and showcase more entertainment news than the needful ones. As during the start of the 2020, many countries like Africa were plagued with the wild fire which only got the 2 min story lines in the channels whereas the movies reviews were taken 30 minutes long hour discussions.
Many major news channels are also fighting over the biased nature of other channels but who is not biased? The biased nature of several channels are clearly visible but are only questioned when attacking a particular ideology.
Many channels in the race of reporting the news first, report it without the proper facts and sometimes create big mistakes either by mentioning wrong facts or wrong details like during the declaration of Osama bin laden's death, a news channels reported, that, Obama bin laden is dead. Even with the teams dedicated as fact checkers, we still need our phones to recheck the news due to the lack of credibility from the news broadcasters way. Due to advancement of such formats journalists are pressurised to find newsworthy stories every day to represent on channels but does news really changes every day, every minute?
Moreover, such rapidity of news channels sometimes also forces political parties to come up with a instant solution to the problem but rarely do the follow up whether the party is actually doing the ground work or reinforcement of such rules? The news channels move onto the next stories without any follow up of the story. Like, during the Hathras case, many political parties were in the race of reaching the victim's house first to ensure their names in the headlines and promised big thing and to the people but after months nobody has done anything in reality to the victim's family.
Human beings are rarely affected by the day to day news as nobody stays glued to their seats and watch 24/7 news to stay that updates as human tendencies are that they only concerned when something either hs happened in their immediate neighborhoods or is directly or indirectly connected to them. Else wise, many knows that there is that same story ruling many channels under different sensationalized headlines.
The 24 hour format was introduced for the betterment of the worldly updates but now is seen as a poison which is under different political influences and serve agenda based stories to their viewers to slowly turn them into a specific ideology in the name of news.
The news 24 hour format is more concerned with the sensationalism, entertainment and opinion rather than the integrity, verification and actuality of the news.
- DEEPIKA KAUSHIK , JOURNALISM(D.U.)
Reviewed by TECHNERD
on
January 17, 2021
Rating: 5


