Clowns in the tube
JOURNALISM has its own damn truths. As a scribe, you stand the chance to be pushed into a situation you never want to be. I am in one. I now sit in a newsroom that sports a television, of all things! Duh. Mind you, it's not the television that's making me tear my greying hair off my fuming top.
Being in a bee hive with no helmet on would have been better compared with the situation I'm in right now. Half-baked weirdos who call themselves political newscasters eating, drinking, sleeping, dreaming and puking uncooked politics and deliberating on how to bombard the reluctant viewer and the even more reluctant listener with dickheads of the silly political kind abound. Pinaryis, Azheekodes, Achoos and the so many bloated Chennithalas and Jayarajans and their doings day in and day out dominate the tube. Kudos to the genius, whoever he / she is, who called the telly the idiot box.
Has journalism ever sounded or looked so silly? I'm talking of Malayalam news channels and the journos who nauseatingly hold fort. Almost all of them sport the looks of the been-there-done-that news analysts with no analysis ever brewing anywhere in their top storey. To give them company are the self proclaimed political observers, who have of late taken up yet another pastime to entertain the telly buff. They have started calling others names! While one calls another dumb, he retaliates by yelling dumber. Meanwhile, one of the players of the political arena accuses another of phoning him up to extend a farcical brawl, another believes he was termed a doggie that too a diarrhoea-inflicted one. The newscasters have a field day, all the time. And, the saddest part is that I, and I'm sure many of my ilk here, are forced to endure nonsense 24x7. The dumb talk and dumber counter talk ring between my ears even while I drive back home. What nonsense! It's a fuckin' bloody weird world of dullards on television.
Journalism indeed has its own damn truths. Newscasters turn producers of skitty skit and you need to endure them too! Easy ways of filling telly wave space, you know. Post elections, and the controversies thereafter, tube space-filling seems to have taken a skitty route. While clippings from many a political event are stitched together with a funny song in the background, it is political analysis taking a different route.
There are some other weirdos too who make it a point provoke the viewer to call him names. I have done that many a time, out of loss of self control. Chat shows are favourite domains to these clowns. While one almost forces the participants and viewers on this side of the television to find the way to his house and shout the worst abuses ever on him, another succeeds, unknowingly, to make the men and women watching him smirk with embarrassment. There's another one who excels in intimidating the chat show audience who come armed with valid queries, while another hops around like a sambar deer with a 'Im the best' visage. Sad, these dudes and dudettes think they are the best. Weirdo buffoons all. Ignorance is bliss in god's own tube cast.
I'm forced to watch this buffoonery all day. I have been trying hard to find at least one who is really made for television. Lemme end this on a brighter note. I have, in fact, found two who really know their job. Asianet's TN Gopakumar and Manorama News' Johnny Lukose. I guess it's time the kids learn to be adults for once, by just watching these two gentlemen carry their expertise in the most admirable manner on TV. What say?

Comments

Cris said…
Johnny Lukose???
3:06 AM
achu said…
god, another angry young man! and that too with a grey top!
9:33 AM
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