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Rajdeep and Ravish fear for TV debates: ‘Is the day far when there’s a stabbing on air?’

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After fisticuffs between BJP’s Gaurav Bhatia and SP’s Anurag Bhadoria, journalists Rajdeep Sardesai and Ravish Kumar hit out at deteriorating TV debates.

New Delhi: The detention of Samajwadi Party spokesperson Anurag Bhadoria by the Noida police after he was involved in a physical brawl with BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia Saturday is another indication that TV news discussions are increasingly mean, nasty and brutish.

During the TV show Yeh Kya Kehta Hai India on Zee News, a heated verbal exchange between the two politicians saw Bhadoria push Bhatia and the latter go after him. Later, the BJP politician lodged a complaint with the Noida police and Bhadoria was detained at the Sector 20 police station.

On Twitter, Bhatia said Bhadoria had “physically man handled” (sic) him: “I could have done the same but as a law abiding citizen, I have given a complaint against him.” Bhatia claimed Bhadoria had also insulted his family.

This is not the first such arrest. On 17 July, while debating triple talaq on Zee Hindustan, Muslim cleric Mufti Ejaz Arshad Qasmi assaulted Farah Faiz, a lawyer and human rights activist. He was arrested following a complaint by the media organisation.

Previously, too, there has been violence on air: In 2015, during a discussion on Radhe Maa, astrologer Deepa Sharma got up and slapped self-styled guru Om Ji Maharaj, and they got into a scuffle.


Also read: Indian TV news is hooked to MGM— no, it’s not a movie channel, but #ModiGetsMichel


‘Pull out a revolver?’

“It is disgraceful,” said Rajdeep Sardesai, consulting editor at TV Today, about the Bhadoria-Bhatia confrontation.

“All that’s left now is for someone to pull a revolver out in the TV studio,” warned Ravish Kumar, NDTV India’s prime time anchor, who hosts the weekday 9 pm show and has been a vocal critic of certain TV news channels and anchors who have replaced journalism with “propaganda”.

“This is a political and business model. It suits certain channels to let fights develop. They don’t want to stop it. What we condemn they will call a ‘great show’,” he added.

Times Now’s managing editor, Navika Kumar, disagreed: “I don’t know the context, but we also hold debates with argument and counter argument, and it has never come to this. This is a one-off case.”

A ‘crazy circus’

Sardesai said the violence and the police intervention is the culmination of turning the debate format into a ‘crazy circus’.

“The studio is a circus set and everyone is playing a part, but in play acting, something can go horribly wrong, or out of control — is the day far off when we see something like a stabbing on air?”

He recalled seeing audiences at travelling TV election shows throwing chairs at each other.

As politics becomes increasingly uncivil, especially during election season when the Prime Minister and the Congress president exchange barbs and accuse each other of lies and corruption, the TV news studio has seen temperatures rising to new levels between political opponents.

On Aaj Tak, on an election show on 20 November, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra called Jawaharlal Nehru and the entire Gandhi family “Thugs of Hindostan”, after the Aamir Khan-Amitabh Bachchan film.

“These political spokespersons have nothing left to say. They don’t come to debate issues but talk about Modi or Rahul baba,” said Ravish, who believes that the political discourse at the highest levels has set the tone for the debates in studios.

While Sardesai agreed that the political discourse is at an all-time “low”, he felt journalists needed to be more “sensitive and responsible”.

“The nature of the debate is adversarial. Some anchors on some channels goad guests and invite the kind of abuse we hear,” he said.

Ravish believes that there is little journalism on many news channels, which instead encourage these ‘senseless debates’, which he believes are weapons to kill informed opinion in democracy.


Also read: Between Sardar Patel and Urjit Patel, TV news channels forgot Sri Lanka


Manufactured melodrama?

Impoliteness, abusive language and aggression have become the hallmark of many TV debates at prime time as news channels compete to attract viewers. It is routine for TV news anchors to yell at panellists and for guests to yell back and at each other.

The surgical strikes in 2016 and the subsequent demand that Pakistani actors not be allowed to work in India raised the pitch in TV studios. Debates grew acrimonious as TV anchors on channels like Times Now, Republic and Zee News labelled politicians, artistes and civil society members as “anti-nationals” if they did not agree to call out Pakistani actors.

In one instance, anchor Arnab Goswami, then on Times Now, asked actor Mita Vashisht to be removed from the studio (30 September 2016).

As anchors pit participants against one another to raise TRPs and promote a certain political agenda, panellists yell as much as anchors.

Senior journalist Saba Naqvi, a regular panellist on debates on Times Now and Republic, says she is “shocked by the rhetoric now used by politicians and participants. I try to stay out of it and not rise to the bait but it’s gotten personal”.

Manufactured melodrama is the name of the game — it’s clear when you watch a show such as Bhai vs Bhai on Zee News, featuring brothers Shehzad and Tehseen Poonawalla face off in an adversarial positions.

“There is no journalism in TV news, so this is what you will get,” Ravish concluded.

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24 COMMENTS

  1. Quality of debate depends upon the calibre of the Anchors Diplorable there is a Vacuum. Most of them are caged Slaves and pritenscious hand cuffed liberals
    What can you expect

  2. Television anchors are equally responsible for the fracas. They use controversial questions to gain TR P rating in order to survive the ever competitive media. Many opposition spoke persons accuse P M Modi and use unparliamentery words to raise the temperature with the help of biased anchors

  3. Please restrict the number of panelists for discussion on any topic of national importance.The TV anchor being the moderator stop the shouting brigade from talking by putting the mike in to mute so they learn a lesson.Please do not invite these shouting brigade for future programs.All political parties must be forewarned about the dignified behavior acceptable to the anchor as well as the TV viewers. TV studio should not be a place for too too mee mee. TV Channels should learn from BBC or CNN how to moderate a discussion and how to choose a panelist.

  4. The problem is with the audiences, they have become sadistic and senseless and enjoy the kind of debate that has become a regular feature on Zee, India TV, ABP and Aaj Tak etc. The anchors of these channels perhaps think that they are Advocate, and Judge both. They can make any one a Demo God or a traitor.
    It is fact that media is but reflection of society.
    Unfortunately politicians of every hue are responsible for having wrecked this curse on India and I don’t see any light at the end of tunnel.

  5. The TV debates are only helping in spreading confusion, anger and hatred amongst the masses. Should be stopped immediately. Anchors only care about their TRP and don’t give a damn about what these debates are doing to the structure of the society.

  6. TV anchors need to invite well educated and knowledgeable persons for debate otherwise ,series of events like this will take place. When PM said in public meeting “which Congress widow got pension’ one can see how the persons are stopping down. In one sense ,it is not even stopping down. It is a sort of premitive civilisation habits

  7. Agree with the point but won’t listen to Rajdeep on this.
    He is the journalist who got physical with Modi supporters first and still had audacity to play victim and claim that the other person manhandled him.

  8. All TV channels & publishing houses including “The Print” are slaves of their sponsors/owners. Instead of questioning as is their right, what anchors do is instigate panelists and then throw in their diktats according to the parties/sponsors they side with. Why allow two panelists to speak at the same time, why not time them one after the other for rebuttals.

  9. If the channels are really interested in an orderly debate, only one microphone should be made operational at one time. The participants should be told beforehand that the format of the debate is this and they should join the debate only if they accept it. How many minutes each one would speak is predetermined and when time ends, the microphone should go mute. Before each one speaks, the anchor may intervene and set the focus for the interaction from that participant. This is a forcibly brought decency, but that is the only way we can work. May be, after some time the debaters may reform themselves.

  10. Rabish and maaldeep shouldn’t afraid of upa side debater as they all belong to same bandwagon. Bjp boycott these two sick. So from where this story cropped up

  11. Likes of Rajdeep Sardesai have brought down the standards of news channels. Instead of positive news and constructive debates, they dish out ‘tu tu mein mein slug fest by questionable characters. Only WION is a decent channel with adequate coverage of news and issues. Sack these TV vendors.

  12. Actually it is not TV debate but Dangal mostly encouraged by Provocative journalists. If EM is serious, they must debare these participants from TV channels.

  13. Ravish has said it correctly that there is no journalism left in TV. Including the journalists named in this report there are instances of false reporting, bias, not allowing views contrary to the anchors liking, shouting at panelists if they do not toe the view. Interestingly there are some business houses in media with multiple. Channels and print media who have different masters to serve some ruling party, some opposition from the same group. These business houses want to be eternally safe pleasing everyone but not the truth

  14. Some of the news channels blindly supporting a certain party without guilt and we can make out the support of certain kind they must be getting in return

  15. Not what the term “ noisy democracy “ is meant to connote. Older journalists, especially those from print, must be horrified. Not sure viewers enjoy this melodrama – there are indications that the TRP figures are being fudged.

  16. Ravish kumar and Rajdeep sardesai also running prapogonda of opposition. Hardly any doubt. Don’t blame channels only. These anchors are also hatred.

  17. Rajdeep Sardesai has conveniently forgotten his own rough, impolite behavior followed by a scuffle( initiated by him) in the US soon after Narendra Modi had been swept to power. It’s therefore somewhat odd for him to preach what he himself doesn’t practise. As regards, Ravish Kumar, he seems to relish sacrcasm; the wry smile on his face when talking about certain political leaders and their parties is a treat to watch. It says all, where his inclinations lie. It’s not truth or news some journalists try to purvey; it’s more about negativity, perversion and pedalling an agenda

  18. Are TV debates really a platform for exchanging views?No.It is so irritating and offending when TV anchors cut short the guests even before they start driving their points home.High pitch debates if it is called one by likes of Arnab makes one reach for remote to change/put off the show.Why the channel keeps inviting unimpressive guests known to assault viewers intelligence?

  19. totally agree, its really petrifying to see spokespersons behave worse than street urchins. news channels are too too noisy with thoo thoo main main. watched with glee when a lady anchor displayed total bravado by taking a high decibel spokesperson off air when he spoke about some agenda that she carries.
    hope patras, raos, goswamis, kumars, choubeys dedibel levels reduce

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