quirky reporting

came across this article on NDTV.com about another fire in Bangalore. What's more interesting here is the way Madam Vasanthi recollects the Carlton Tower fire episode - "Some of them had jumped in panic from the top floors of the commercial building and did not survive the fall." Hmmm. Wonder why they didn't make it.

is it news?

wonder what makes for a good news article... factual reporting, objective analysis, and something more i would guess but how about relevance to the topic? WoM tells me The Hindu is pretty good when it comes to such things. but a recent article kinda places the opinion under doubt...

this is about employees of 'Indian' going on a flash strike and one of the unfortunate passengers was a gal from the south who was being refused an alternate accommodation. agreed that it is not fair on the part of the airline to treat anyone that way, but reporter goes on to add that she "finds it difficult to converse in Hindi." now how does that matter here!? does it make her case any more pitiable? what is the reporter trying to express anyway?

they didnt tell us!

agreed that some people are a bit slow on the uptake even in seemingly obvious situations... but mankind as we know it, has its ways of baffling its own understanding.

Britons are gradually waking up to the news that their kids are becoming obese. yes, in literal terms, its news for them (saw it on almost all the channels here). but that seems to be the least of their concerns... what seems to be bothering them, more than the sight of their under-11 covering the better part of the sofa, is that nobody told them their kids were growing fat! ....eh!? rather dense i should say... (no i dont mean the kids!!) one parent complains that the government is now doing nothing about it! look, my kid fed on the fast-food stores that you allowed to be erected, now he's grown out of his shorts thanks to you (huh!?) and you ought to do something about it! wow!

but people do know how to throw their weight around... news channel calls in the health minister and asks her what her ministry plans to do about this 'crisis'... and minister asks the public to be more judicious in their choice of diet and discipline their kids a bit (i heard your jaw drop... i agree. thats sacrilege in this land!) in a perfect world her answer would have been well digested but we are not there yet. tv host with all her seriousness asks if she implies she's not going to do anything about it & leave it to the poor unsuspecting parents to fend for themselves... poor poor parents! tsk tsk... they just didnt see it coming did they!

radio ga ga...

this had been on my mind for quite some time now. cnn-ibn's (another of my fav channels) "southern verdict" was much like the vigorous shake of a bottle of soda.

there's fm radio in chennai (yes, its time it started behaving like a city if it wants to be called one.) with more channels coming up of late. am told theres radio city as well as radio mirchi. i jumped with joy and clapped my hands with glee when i heard the news... strained my ears with childlike expectation to hear something other than tamil in the airwaves. i have nothing against tamil or tamil radio... but public demand seems to have everything against what is not tamil. radio city as i knew it to be never got to be so here in ammaland... in the days of yore it did have a mix of hindi, english and tamil for about a month; until it wised up and started playing only tamil... its ad revenue probably hit new highs after it learnt the rule of the land :)

makes me wonder if the local populace loves the language truly, madly, deeply or mere hypocritic hatred for something else - am tempted to use the word "foreign" in context of hindi. as a show of hands, i would vote for the latter. hypocrisy? yes, that too. why? heres where we go on air :)

theres this channel whose name i couldnt care to note, where its jingle starts with the schummacher song and proceeds into a hindi intro... it lights up my face... but what follows is a barrage of tamil movie pieces (my understanding of music refuses to let me call what they air songs) its just the jingle... i dont understand this. if all they play is tamil songs, why resort to hindi and english as a crowd puller? seems like the listener is aware of this music but still wants only tamil. a couple of RJs get into what seems like a warzone. i sit tensed. but the crowd seems to be laughing in tandem with the chaos... oh! so thats how their jokes sound!? ok :)

then there is this song which has adnan sami's voice (i think). probably the movie demands it or its this guy's style, the tune had to have a northy feel in it. there seems a desparate desire to ride the populist wave, but also an insecure yearning to look beyond the moat. but this doesnt last for long... what follows resembles a masai hunting song. am sure they have one, if not they might as well borrow it from here. but my fellow passenger seems to be having a gala time lip-singing it... wow! this guy actually likes this!? he even affords me the horror of a jig. michael jackson is put to shame...

this is where cnn-ibn fits right in. it seems the southern states had a golden jubilee month celebrating their "southernhood". i wouldnt comment on the skewed manner in which the research was carried out... nor will i attempt at understanding why rajdeep sardesai felt jolly glad about 36% southies polled wanting hindi made compulsory in schools while "only" 45% wanting it to be a voluntary subject. what i would like to understand is the need for such a program in the first place :P do programs like these hold any water when basic demand for seclusion and exclusivity glare at you in the face?

rude? frenetic?

this thought was triggered by an article about chennai being a rude city. the summary said "the frenetic pace of city life" and it spoke of chennai. i couldn't read any further. i had to sit up and take notice of the "frenetic pace."

it wasnt about the etiquette of the city. i fully accept and expect the average tam in chennai to be rude. fortunately all my tam friends here are above-average :-) (devil, i can see your horns grow) :-) for someone coming here from mumbai, i've been groping on chennai's arm to feel its pulse. from the walk on the roads to the service in restaurants/stores. the whole place seems to be moving at 6fps.

one ought to be more considerate though. you do find pace here. but one also needs guts to look for it. try the roads for a change. its a dragrace against the lights. and doesnt matter if you are on the left side of the road. on-coming traffic is legal. after all, its the frenetic pace one has in this city... who has the time to go around and take a 'U' turn? and yeah, it wasnt a cycle coming my way, it was a rick :-)

NDTV again....

this has the classic NDTV signature all over it! looks like they get trained to come out with er… ‘NDTVisms’!? :)

reporter covers a train accident (did not note where). she goes something like ‘lineman has been taken up for questioning on account of negligence. lie detector tests from forensic department conclude that he’s lying. results of the test are not made public’.

huh!? is a lie detector supposed to tell you something beyond that!?

wiser...

• learnt that pouring hot water in a PET bottle distorts it irreversibly. now it looks like its been molested!
• NDTV still sucks. "Live" reporter bugs passenger about cancelled train. "why did you want to go to bangalore?", he asks, "any urgent work?" his luck, he didnt ask me that...
• weather is pleasant, the low pressure has given chennai the rains it so much deserved. chennai never looked so good. sad, other places are being ravaged.
• office building is one of the tallest in this area. can see greenery all around!

NatGeo

watching this documentary on NatGeo about hidden amazon tribes. (for once i am watching something informational!) there's this tribe zoha or something that rhymes that way who are kind of close to nature. i mean in every sense of it. naturists, every one of them. male, female included.

woman making a nice headgear from a local bird's soft white feathers. now here's the commentator's interpretation: that is the way the women distinguish themselves from the men. eh? bunch of skinny dippers need to distinguish between the genders through apparel accessories!?

but there was one little thing that caught my attention (no pun intended here!) if the tribe, in its hunt, manages to find an animal/bird that managed to survive their hunting expedition, then catches the creature and makes it their pet! yes, they dont eat it. its brethern are ingested but not the survivor! pet monkey wearing a tiny necklace made of another monkey's teeth. how comforting for this pet!

ok. now i get back to the show. really interesting this channel :) pity its on paid access in chennai.

wha..?

i love taking jabs at the media. ample opps to catch them unaware :-)

there was this news piece by NDTV the other day (i target NDTV the way hackers get at microsoft)... reporter was covering a police firing on unarmed villagers in rajasthan and goes on to implicate the villagers for creating a havoc.

reporter: "it is unthinkable to even imagine..." some emphasis!

this reminds me of one more of their goof ups. it was delhi and in winter.

news reader to live reporter: "so tell me, when will the delayed flights be allowed to leave on time?" .....!? we can question the need for a live reporter some other time. :-)

of course, we can catch all their goofiness when they 'let us know they are goofy' during an end-of-the-year-laugh-your-ass-out snippet.

oxymoron?

heard this from an NDTV news reporter as he was covering the bus service from Srinagar-Muzaffarabad that started off.

"....the security as usual remained unprecedented...."

now 'unprecedented' ought to imply something that has never been paralleled. something that hasnt happened before. and 'remain' implies that something hasnt changed, or rather stayed the same. so we have a security cover at a level that has never been paralleled, but stayed the same. hmmm.