Attention mongering, the tabloid way

Sex, Crime, and Scandal have always sold newspapers, movies and television programmes. One thing is clear; in the 21st century if you want to stay associated with the media and be ?successful? you will have to sensationalise your product or risk dying.

The recent sting operation conducted in Bollywood by India TV correspondents propelled its TRP ratings to an all time high. Till Sunday midnight, India TV received 70,000 smss. It would be fair to conclude that the channel was born with this scandal, as never, since its inception, has it received anything remotely close to this figure.

The day India TV broke the story about the casting couch in Bollywood, it created a sensation. Even those who are not news watchers began to tune their TV sets to this ?lesser? known channel to learn about Bollywood?s widest known truth. Those ?pure? homes, which abhor Hindi movies and pretend to be appalled by sleazy gossip, were also riveted to their television sets.

Why was the nation eavesdropping on an actor?s sexual escapades on a Sunday afternoon? Didn?t they have anything better to do? The truth is that scandals fascinate nearly everyone. Those amongst us who are high-minded might denounce those who convey scandalous information, but are precisely the ones who make sure every body else knows about it immediately. The highbrows have always looked down upon the lowbrows that have published stories on sex, crime and scandal, but look what happens on the ground when a story like this breaks! It creates TRP history.

For years, scandals have epitomised news. People love to see the hypocrite naked before their eyes. The more respectable the victim, the juicier the gossip. In order to confirm its own sense of virtue, the public does not mind becoming peeping toms. In fact, it relishes it. In passing judgement on the deviant, the public restores confidence in its own current standards of morality. To put it simply, one man?s tragedy is another man?s entertainment.

And the media has always known this unchanging truth of the human heart and made a killing out of it. ?In London, many more people buy The Sun and Mirror than the highly respectable Times. Even at the newsstands in New York, the Daily News and the Post outsell the Times; the story is same in France, Italy, Japan, India, and elsewhere,? says a media mogul from North India. Ever since a Mumbai eveninger decided to convert into a tabloid, its circulation soared.

There is nothing novel about the fascination with scandal. For years, Stardust, the number one movie gossip magazine, has been invading privacy and peddling sensationalism, which till date, is more scandalous than today?s tabloids. The world has always had an unquenchable thirst for real or imagined accounts of scandals, disasters and murders; and if they concern celebrities, they are more attractive.

Experts say, this is because these interests are tied to a primordial need to be alert to likely threats and probable mates. For years, the gatekeepers of culture have criticised the ?evil? motives behind sensationalism. They say that its content is designed to arouse strong reaction by exaggerated or sickening details. Some say sensationalism is intended to excite and please vulgar tastes. Sensationalism is defined as ?perception by means of the senses.? For centuries, ?intellectuals? have shown far more reverence for understanding gained through the intellect than through the senses. There is no denying that a very small section of our society which calls itself the intelligentsia, prefers movies like Black to Murder, which they say is ?devoid of all morality and is designed merely to titillate the audiences.?

This section claims that it can barely tolerate ?mere? entertainment. They have a need to believe that while they are being entertained, their ?souls? are also being nourished. Now this is the very essence of tabloidisation. In fact, those who are condemning India TV today, are guilty of catering to sensationalism themselves. The difference is only one of degree. The game these days is how to present the frivolous as the profound.

?The reason why we have introduced a crime slot in our channel is because it sells. We have come to realise that no other type of news is of such universal interest,? says a marketing head of a TV network. There is no denying that everything today has turned into show-business. Politics, cricket, and now news.

The world is separated into ?good? and ?evil? just like in our mass-driven Bollywood movies. There is no room to explore the ?grey? where life actually lives and breathes.

And the reason for this is the viewer has an overwhelming abundance of choice in his living room. From one black and white sanitised Doordarshan channel with squeaky music, we now have 200 highly sophisticated channels, each one vying for our attention. The India TV sting operation is a by-product of this ?desperation.?

Today, the consumer is suffering from a choice overload. It is strange that while we are climbing the pinnacle of human possibilities, and are awash in material abundance, the bigger we get, the emptier we become. My children have at their disposal what my parents could not even dream about. But often I wonder, haven?t we all paid a great price to achieve this carnival culture. My wife says ?you get what you want.? She is right. Only to discover that what we want doesn?t satisfy us and leaves us thirstier for more.

The writer is a Mumbai-based filmmaker