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Journalism of Courage
The final countdown has begun and everyone is counting. Starting midday, March 2, television will only be about the elections. No entertainment, no nothing, just elections. Doordarshan will have 72 hours of live telecast, Zee India will have T.N.Seshan, Sony will have Vinod Dua and STAR will have who else, but Prannoy Roy.
And don’t forget the psephologists (never mind the pronounciation). Messiers Yadav, Bhalla, Roy (donning an old hat for the polls) Rao and first timer Swapan Dasgupta pouring over the results as they come in, breaking them down, analysing trends up and upside down. Don’t forget those renowned swings’ either which will pendulum some party/parties into power. And at the end of three days you will perhaps dearly want to forget the anchors and experts: Rahul Dev (DD1), Madhu Trehan, Karan Thapar, Tavleen Singh (DD2), Mrinal Pande, Vikram Chandra, Rangarajan (STAR), M.J.Akbar, Chandan Mitra, Praful Bidwai (Zee India), Vinod Dua, Mark Tully (Sony), Mini Menon, Sudha Sadanand (TVi)…
To saynothing of the politicians who will be rushing from one studio to the next and the next, saying the same things.
Needless to say, Doordarshan’s will be the biggest show. They have the best facilities, direct live’ uplinking, NICNET providing the results and an all-India reach. Also, DD has the TV Today team handling their telecast.For the first time, the coverage on DD1 is going to be done in Hindi. The Aaj Tak team, led by Rahul Dev with psephologist Yogendra Yadav, will do the entire 72-hour show. There will be five to six anchors on Aap Ka Faisla.
Helping the team will be India Today correspondents stationed across the country. “This time there will be greater geographical participation and a wider spread. There will also be greater people participation. We’ve been working on this for over a month and have had a number of rehearsals,” says Rahul Dev.
TV Today will also be doing the shorter 33-hour English show on DD2 India Decides. “Firstly, the programme is not based on one anchor. This timeThapar, Tavleen and I will be doing it together. Each segment will reflect the personality of the anchor. There will also be little surprises throughout the show, it is not going to be just analyses and talking to guests. The styling and format will be different,” says Madhu Trehan without explaining how. The election analyst on India Decides will be Dasgupta, Deputy Editor, India Today. Will two shows from the same stable with different anchors and psephologists have similar interpretations? Wait and see.
The man closely most associated with election coverage in India, Prannoy Roy will be there on STAR, alongwith his NDTV team of Mrinal Pande, Vikram Chandra, Rajdeep Sardesai, etc…. The experts will be Dorab R. Sopariwala and Dr Mahesh Rangarajan. STAR’s telecast will also be for 72-hours with hourly updates on the mandate.
This is the first time Roy and Co. will be presenting an election show without Doordarshan. “We have always done this coverage and are banking on our experience and advancedcomputer graphics to make this coverage the best. We are depending on our own people for the results,” says Narayan Rao, General Manager, NDTV.
Zee India and TVi will also have round-the-clock election programming. Verdict’98 on Zee India will have T.N.Seshan mastering ceremonies and there will be analytical programmes with five-minute poll updates every hour. There will also be news flashes between the programmes. “Dr Bhaskar Rao of Centre for Media Studies will be the expert on the show. We will also have well known journalists on the air. Actually, name the expert or politician and he will be on the Zee Network,” says P.C. Lahiri, Vice-President of Zee Network.
TVi will be making full use of its 24-hour deal with VSNL. Surjeet Bhalla will be the psephologist and TVi hopes to capitalise on its well- established countrywide network. The results on TVi will be based on “ORG MARG’s hot-out-of-the-oven nationwide polls” said a spokesperson.
Sony has decided to give the viewers a break. ChunavChunauti will have 10-minute updates on the hour, every hour, giving a quick overview. “Ours is not a politically driven analysis. We are not going to be on air continuously. Instead, we will give the viewer the gist of what is happening, something like the score update in a cricket match,” explains Vinod Dua.
But the one thing that is common in all the shows is the importance they pledge to give the common man.
This time the citizen will also be a part of the entire exercise. Phone-ins are the in’ thing this year and everybody promises the common man a chance to be heard on television. Brush up your election knowledge and get your telephones checked, because channels are promising you half-a-minute of live air time. Of course, there are terms and conditions.
“An editorial team will screen the calls. Only if they think that it is of national importance will they put the call through to the guests,” explains Lahiri.
What he doesn’t know is that every channel is selling the phone-in as theirunique USP. Each one has also marketed its telecast as the best thing to happen to Indian television during the elections. That India will decide. One thing’s for certain, though: it’s going to be talking heads like heads never talked before.
