TELEPROMPT
Let sanity prevail
MANNIKA CHOPRA

Over the past two weeks there has been an astonishing proliferation of words on TV, which you thought had been relegated to the dustbin of history. Racism, white supremacy, bigotry, zealot, prejudice—words that conjure up images of an intolerant age gone by rather than one in a time where a black man has become the president of the most powerful nation in the world. But surf any channel and there you find these terms popping up like some noxious weed from all news channels, and slapping you across the face.

Australia, specifically Melbourne, is the epicentre of this angst. At last count, 11 attacks on Indian students have taken place, and all of them have been labelled as examples of racism by Indian networks. Each attack has been positioned high up in the news line-up, creating some sort of a pressure point on the Ministry of External Affairs. Interviews with parents unwilling to send their children back to Australia and their progeny are being telecast across channels.

Visuals of protests by agitating students and the aggressive reaction by the Australian police have served only to act like a lighter fluid sprinkled onto an already raging fire. The net result of such reportage is that suddenly the whole of Australia appears like a racial hotbed and abyss of
prejudice.

Some channels like NDTV and CNN-IBN have been using local reporters Down Under to furnish extra details and add colour, but the tone and the tenor of the story remains the same—vulnerable Indians, especially students, being brutalised by Australians caught between a recession-hit economy and products of an inbred racist society, which believes in the idea of white supremacy.

It has been left to other media outlets like the media ethics website, thehoot.org, and news agencies to air the voices of other professional Indians living in Australia. Such people are yodelling from rooftops that though such attacks need to be condemned, they do not reflect the attitude of the average Australian. The country still provides a safe haven to thousands of other students.

So again we have that age-old question: Why is TV being so over the top? Why has television overstated its response to these attacks? Anchors can keep saying it’s the nature of the beast—you need a crisis a minute to keep the medium’s juices flowing—till they are blue in the face, but I have stopped buying that argument. A 24/7 news vacuum does not mean that you need to misrepresent, misunderstand and
misinterpret.

There is a context and perspective to every event. The problem with the kind of discourse we are seeing on TV these days on attacks is that it has the potential to close down doors—never a good option. Already, the retribution attacks have
started.

To mark the 25th anniversary of Operation Bluestar, CNN-IBN presented a looking-ahead-and-we-were-there type of feature. The nub of the report was that some adults, though they remember the event vividly, want to move ahead. In the same report, showing another dimension, reporters like Satish Jacob and photographer Nirmal Singh relived those tragic moments. The report, though competent, could have been packed with some better analysis and should have profiled a community fully vested with its religious history.

What were NDTV 24X7 and Times Now thinking when they played the footage of a woman trying to commit suicide by lying in front of a train, and getting up intact—again and again? The footage firstly seemed so bizarre that it seemed like a slice of those late, late night shows like Cops or Most Shocking Moments. But even if it was real or manufactured, surely this is not the kind of stuff that credible news channels should delve into.

Now that the Twenty20 mania has begun, we can expect to see cricket buffs with dark rings under their eyes. The matches even without the seven-minute strategic breaks, so beloved of the IPL matches, end well past midnight. But it certainly is more exciting fare, especially when those apparently invincible Australians were humbled by Sri Lanka.

Personally, much more appealing was Roger Federer’s winning—at last this year’s French Open title. It was in many ways a historic match. Not only was this the one title that had eluded Federer, but it was also the one with which he equalled Pete Sampras’14 Grand Slam record titles. But again, it was much more than that. Although his victory was almost a forgone conclusion, he won in straight sets against Swedish Robin Soderling. It was his sublime artistry that stood out. His devilish drop-shots and aces—four in a row—were absolute classics.

At a time when tennis has become a high octane game—full of furrowed brows, technologically improved racquets and even doping scandals—Roger Federer stands as the good guy who plays great tennis and wants to continue playing for a few years more. Why? Because, as he disarmingly told CNN, his wife wants their child to see Federer play. How cute is that?