Something I don’t understand about news channels in India is why on EARTH do they ask rhetorical questions. By ‘news channels’, I mean English news channels because it has been scientifically proven by now that the Hindi ones are run by spirit-possessed retards. And even when I saw ‘English news channel’, I mean Times Now and CNN-IBN. Headlines Today never shows news and seems to be in perpetual advertisement break whenever I switch to it, showing their stupid ‘We’re refreshingly different retarded’ ads; and NDTV 24×7 with its garish colors looks more like a pr0n channel, coupled with shoddy reporters.
Compared to everyone else, CNN-IBN and Times Now are quite sensible. Comparatively, that is. For instance, what is the need to have a 30-second video clip looping over and over again for a four-minute news article? Makes my head spin. Admit it, that you’ve no footage, and move on.
Coming the questions themselves, which are so mind-bogglingly stupid and rhetorical. Following are actual questions which the studio anchors asked their reporters (or reporters asking people), followed by the answers I’d have given to those retards if it was me who was asked such silly questions:
Anchor (after Jaipur blasts – may the victims rest in peace): Now this is the first time a major terrorist incident has occurred, do you think the more security forces will be posted in public places?
Reply: No. They’ll all be busy protecting the IPL cheerleaders from being hit by (water bottle) missiles.Reporter (to an obviously frightened small kid who was there at a blast site): How do you feel about it?
Reply: Great! Blood, mayhem all around, seems right out of 300. Any idea which movie is being shot here?Reporter (to Joy Bhattacharya, advisor on the Kolkata Knight Riders team – he’s an amazing quizmaster too): How do you feel that your team is on a winning streak?
Reply: I’m highly disappointed with the outcome. I had bet a lot of money into our team losing, because conducting quizzes hardly pays anything. Ruddy bastards, they keep winning. Maybe I should try and get Shoaib beat up Ganguly with his bat…
See what I mean? Utterly ridiculous interviews. Try seeing one on BBC or CNN. OK, BBC, not CNN, because the latter is after all, an American television network.
Douglas Adams wrote in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy:
Ford Prefect had discovered that human beings had this habit of stating the obvious. He conjectured that if a human stops talking, their brains would start working…
May not be the exact quote, but that was the gist of it. Nicely illustrated by a scene from one of the later episodes:
Arthur Dent: Zaphod, it seems like you’ve fallen down a 30-foot hole.
Ford Prefect: Arthur, I think he knows that.
Oh well, hope normality is restored soon.
0 replies on “Don’t They Ask Rhetorical Questions On News Channels?”
You know Jefferson once said; “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
I agree with him and you; see the thing is that in our country the press isn’t doing the job it should do. They are supposed to be the guardians of something called liberty, have they heard of it? I guess not for they’re too busy chasing after wrestlers; trying to imitate the ghost busters, without the good taste, of course; measuring the skirt length of Cheerleaders; non-existent abuse of patriotism by various celebrities, I am going to cut the list short over here but the point is that they aren’t doing the job they should be doing. They’re dumbing the populous down and the result is what you see around you, we need to do something about this.
Maybe we need an Indian Ted Turner…
Hello Prateek. Thanks for the comment and the invite. The second quiz is out indeed. You can play it now on our website. Look forward to having you and your mates there. Cheers.
@Anuj: Exactly. Just for the sake of viewership, they’re turning ‘news’ channels in total circuses. It’s the closest they can get to pr0n (example, the discussion on cheerleaders) under the garb of ‘news’.
@Sursuri.com – Thanks a lot for the invite. This is not my blog. My blog is available at – http://www.prateekv.wordpress.com
Anyways, I have submitted my answers for the Quiz 🙂
@Ankur – U are quite rite abt the rhetoric questions, they r really boring! But I beg to differ on one point – NDTV 24X7 is the best English News Channel there is rite now in India, CNN-IBN and Times NOW were also started by ex-NDTVians and these channels are real copy-cats!
Even the IPL coverage by SET MAX has been ordinary with the commentators just repeating things in every match – electrifying atmosphere, teams not “gelling” or bonding well and pressure on the youngsters……….Its really boring…..It wud have been much better had ESPN Star bagged the rights….But then its money power here!
Good analysis.. But i totally disagree with u about ur comment on NDTV 24×7. thats d best channel among all.. its d only channel u can rely on, with experienced anchors and reporters. and it has rewamped itself recently. for d past few months its ratings are soaring, even more than that of cnn ibn and times now combined together (source- amap).. their coverage of ipl and jaipur blasts was also phenomenal. also interesting is a new show called ‘NewsNet 2.0’ which gives netizen’s view on most news stories.
@Ashish – yes, quite correct 🙂 I agree.
Some great programmes and coverage. But yes sometimes they do get “rhetorical”
@Ashish: I don’t think so. NDTV was one of the best earlier. Now, they look silly with all those ridiculous garish colours and funny whoosh-whoosh sounds on all news stories. The other day I was watching it, they were showing a PowerPoint presentation from an email forward on George Bush’s food comments. That’s not something a big channel like them should be doing, especially when the PPT in question was so dumbass in saying US uses a lot of biofuels. It doesn’t. SOUTH America does, but not much of US. NDTV anchors and reporters don’t seem that motivated these days either. Both Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai were NDTV’s most charismatic anchors, and they both left, leaving it floundering. Prannoy Roy hardly does shows these days, and even when he does, they’re drab and boring. He doesn’t seem to realise that the days when he used to make shows for Doordarshan are over.
Times Now is the #1 news channel now. NDTV has lost it after competition came up.
Perfect work,