scorecardresearch
Sunday, September 21, 2025
HomeOpinionTele-scope

Tele-scope

Nikki’s death deserved facts. What we got was a carousel of theories from TV news

The death by fire of Greater Noida’s Nikki Bhati has been a puzzle surrounded by a maze of conflicting claims and evidence. Worse, television news — and some newspaper reports — have confused...

KBC completes 25 years. No violence or weeping bahus, just Amitabh Bachchan and his questions

When facts have all but disappeared from political and social discourse, Kaun Banega Crorepati values them — and pays you to get them right.

Biting terror, doggone dilemma, urban menace. Indian TV war over Delhi street dogs

News channels were also in two minds about removing stray dogs to the government dog pounds. NDTV took credit for it and CNN-News 18 called ‘controversial order’.

Real Smriti Irani would give Tulsi Virani a tight slap

It’s odd to see Smriti Irani's Tulsi Virani in the second season of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi cry so much, and beseech the powers that be to come to her rescue.

‘Very, very big news…massive, massive development’—How TV covered Jagdeep Dhankhar resignation

Television news anchors were caught smack in the middle of their 9 pm debates when Dhankhar publicly announced his resignation, so they didn't have time to call their 'sources'.

Crime stories dominated Indian TV news headlines—murder, suicide to execution

The fate of Nimisha Priya, the Indian nurse in Yemen accused of killing her business partner, was comprehensively covered by television and newspapers — it was a page-1 story.

Hindi TV news channels’ favourite villain the Muslim is back—Mitthoo Mian to Muharram

From conspiracies to feed onions to kavadiyas to UP’s ‘conversion king’ Jamaluddin – Muslims made news for all the wrong reasons this week.

Indian TV news moved from Sindoor to Midnight Hammer faster than a cross-border Rafale strike

When it's war, India's TV news has one strategy—repeat animation, old experts, new explosions.

Grisly Meghalaya honeymoon horror or Modi govt anniversary? TV news chased Sonam all week

TV reporters asked Raja’s family, “What punishment do you want for Sonam?” and by Wednesday, his mother and brother were calling for the death penalty.

TV news is always enthusiastic about a ‘war’—India-Pakistan, Putin-Zelenskyy, Kannada-Tamil

What’s clear is that TV new coverage of modern warfare is more eye-catching: boots on the ground have been replaced by flying machines, allowing news channels to play video war games.

On Camera

Was India’s public sector born out of European envy?

For all its obvious blemishes, capitalism alone holds out the most creative and dynamic force that any civilization has ever discovered, wrote BP Godrej in 1980.

Market regulator SEBI clears Adani Group of impropriety alleged by Hindenburg Research

SEBI probe concluded that purported loans and fund transfers were paid back in full and did not amount to deceptive market practices or unreported related party transactions.

2 Assam Rifles personnel killed as convoy ambushed in Manipur, on ‘same route Modi took’ fortnight ago

This is the first major attack on central security forces since last November, when a CRPF jawan was killed and four were injured in an ambush in Jiribam on Manipur-Assam border. 

India doesn’t give walkovers to Pakistan in war. Here’s why it shouldn’t do it in cricket either

Many really smart people now share the position that playing cricket with Pakistan is politically, strategically and morally wrong. It is just a poor appreciation of competitive sport.