We have all been torchered by the Breaking News and their younger cousins of the dancing/singing & reality-show fames. For some like me, it meant an almost complete break from the idiot box and I guess thats how I missed this new milestone that our news channels have crossed.
Yesterday while flicking the channels I saw a familiar face – a masked one- on one of the Hindi Breaking News channels. I recalled seeing this guy in a show which helped decode magic tricks (think it was on AXN) and I liked the overall concept and the over-dramatization of the whole act to fit 2-3 tricks into the 20 minute slot. But what I saw yesterday was just outright crazy.
They were showing this masked guy (from the same show) about to do a knife throwing trick and our hindi script went on talking about how this guy was out to “kill the pretty woman” with some really sharp knives. They showed that shot almost 8 times over, saying please keep watching to find out what happens next.
It reminded me of another time long back, when I had seen a show on Animal Planet about the deadliest snakes (top picks being rated on some 5-6 parameters) and then watching some crazy twisted version of the same on Breaking News.
I really want to know from those in the media industry, how this works
- Does the Channel which aired it originally make money from these “Breaking News” channels by sharing this ?
- Is there no law against misleading public with content thats deliberately re-arranged ?
- If AXN was not paid for the magic trick content, why are they not suing these other channels?
- Why dont the Breaking News guys learn to use Google & YouTube. They will get realistic, crazy stories with some amazing videos.