I like to keep myself updated on what's happening around the world and I've noticed that watching the news, while I'm not plugged into the www, helps me in that mission. That I'm aware of headlines from across the globe and still end up getting drenched on my way to/from work because I didn't carry an umbrella is a totally different story. I have a choice of four channels for local and international news. And in nearly all of them, there appears, seated on the newsreader's desk, a laptop that seems to be contributing nothing to the proceedings in any obvious way. One of the Tamil channels, and I can't remember which one, has the laptop PC's screen closed half-way and the anchors treat it like a wild beast and make a concious attempt to not let their hands go anywhere near it lest they lose a couple of digits. I've never seen the newsreader, who is always reading off the teleprompter, use it to say, "Oh! look at this piece from the web!" or perhaps even "You guys take a break while I respond to my mails." Offensive it may seem, but at least, that piece of equipment is being put to some use.
Which brings us to the pressing question: "What if?". I may be taking this a bit too far but what if, one day, he is online on an instant messenger program and his son, who has made a bet with his friends, messages him right in the middle of the business news.
Reader: Asian stocks rallied today on fresh assurances from...
Laptop: Tada! Kiddo just signed in
Reader: ...the Central Bank of Japan....Why you little rascal.. (To the cameraman) No! Keep it rolling while I handle this.(Starts typing frantically on the keyboard) Theeere, that should take care of the brat...where was I?
Or, what if a malicious program infects the laptop and decides to corrupt the teleprompter that is hooked up to their network, replacing the news script with gibberish or something worse, like the truth. Farfetched, but likely nevertheless.
Despite all these clear and present dangers, there still sits a tenacious laptop, perched rather prominently, eating up pixels on my screen. It is either a marketing ploy for product placement or part of a psychological exercise based on results that having a PC nearby helps add credibility to the content. Well, how else can one explain WebMD? One can never be too sure I suppose.
I'm also peeved by the awkward routine at the end of the newscast. The news has been dispensed. The viewers have been brought up to speed on the happenings around the globe, the newsreader has wished the viewers good night (or day) and the title music starts. But the image of an unsure newsreader is still on the screens. The more savvy ones appear relaxed: collect the sheaf of papers, arrange them in some order, pull out a pen and write something on those papers and generally try to look cool. But alas, not all of them look composed in front of a running camera without a script. Listen to any of Rajinikant's extempore speeches and you'll know what I'm talking about. I could be imagining this. But I can sense the onset of nervousness even as the sports section comes on. This nervousness sits tight through the weather report and as they sign off, it takes complete hold. The cameraman, probably with an evil smile on his face, unflinchingly focuses on them and the poor folks get all too conscious. If it is a single person, they try to do something that is worthy of a newsreader of a big channel, while cursing the cameraman under their breath through clenched teeth. And if there are two of them, they immediately turn towards at each other and start a conversation, to keep it natural. It may last only a few seconds, but I have a tough time imagining what the after-talk would be during those moments as the music plays on. I can straight away rule out politics, business and sport. Also the weather. My point is, and I speak for the news watching community as a whole, that we don't want to be forced to view a muted discussion of studio gossip. Unless we can be part of it, that is.
All this makes me miss the good old, very formal, near neutral, plain vanilla Doordarshan (DD) news that was flawlessly read by excellent folks like Minu (my personal favorite), Geetanjali Iyer, Rini Simon (later Rini Khanna), Usha Albequerque, Mrinalini and Tejeshwar Singh and their Tamil colleagues Sandhya Rajagopalan, Shobana Ravi (Chandigad, killow-meter, cush-meer). Right after they wished me good night (yeah, me!) their image would fade, the title music would come on and signal the day's end. Given DD's technical abilities, there were those moments when they would look at the monitor, believing that the clippings would come and instead look at themselves looking at a monitor. After a few uncertain seconds, they'd recover and move on to the next item. There may have been quite a few of them, but those were glitches, or in DD-speak, "rukavats". There were hardly any awkward moments, designed to make them or the viewers uneasy. And certainly no laptops.
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