Killing Absurdity

“Exclusives stories aren’t always so.

The media puts labels on everything

to annoy rivals. I once put ‘Exclusive

News’ on the weather by mistake.”

— Piers Morgan

(British Journalist)

India has taught Pakistan a sobering military lesson, reining in (albeit temporarily) this rogue neighbour’s obsession with terror and military skirmishes. The ceasefire between the two nations appears to be a ‘forced’ pause, because Pakistani drones and missiles are somehow still finding their way into Indian air-space. It is up to Islamabad now to man up and put an end to its repeated dalliance with deadly surrogates and mercenary elements.

For India, this is a landmark moment, one that would be more meaningful if it cracks the whip against its own television media as well. Pakistan’s military generals have been tamed. A section of India’s TV media needs to be bridled too, stopped from the theatrics and absurdity that seem driven not by a hankering for news or national interest, only by a mad lust for TRPs. A victory has been achieved on the border battlefields. A second one beckons, in India’s newsrooms.

This may be an appropriate moment to get India’s TV media to reflect on its dangerous descent into farce. The recent military escalation should serve not just as a triumph of strategy but as a mirror to the madness unfolding nightly in TV studios. If the ceasefire marks a military victory over Pakistan, a deeper, quieter triumph would be reclaiming our public discourse from the grip of self-aggrandizing anchors and fabricated nationalism. The real win would be restoring sanity in a nation where screaming headlines often drown out truth, and studio lights blind good judgment.

Ten days back, the Government issued an advisory urging news networks to exhibit restraint in their coverage. A few days ago, it was compelled to issue a sterner reminder, because many TV networks continued their plunge into the surrealistic abyss of fiction and fantasy. Competing to outshout and outshine each other, channels peddled headlines straight out of preposterous playbooks – claiming India had taken over Islamabad; bombed Karachi into oblivion; wiped out the Pakistani military; and captured General Asim Munir without so much as firing a single bullet.

Theatrics and buffoonery

It is time India’s TV media wakes up to its own shameless theatrics, to the deadly consequences of its buffoonery. If the standoff with Pakistan serves any purpose beyond the battlefield, it should be a reform of our news ecosystem, which has touched a nadir in absurdity, irresponsibility and self-laudatory fantasy. In a zeal to outshout, outshine and outlie rival channels, many used military exchanges to bombard an entire nation with outlandish night-time reports. It was not analysis – it was role-play masquerading as news, a parody of journalism that undermined the very real risks and sacrifices being made by our soldiers on the frontline.

We are not speaking of fringe platforms on the dark web. We are discussing prime-time segments on mainstream TV channels with nationwide and international viewership. The anchors involved weren’t rogue freelancers. They were familiar faces with a celebrity status, staring into the camera with smug assurance, attired for war with Kevlar-lined microphones and misplaced metaphors.

Nothing was understated, and the irresponsibility of the broadcasts cannot be exaggerated. What unfolded was not grotesque farce – a brigade of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, with barmy protagonists charging at windmills. The newsrooms themselves were headline-worthy – virtual war zones with animated missiles and CGI explosions, calibrated not for truth but for TRP spikes. It showed that television news, barring a few exceptions, has been corrupted. Once-honourable newsrooms have mutated into orchestrated spectacles and spoofs. Worst of all, the spectacles are not confined to a domestic audience. International viewers – citizens, governments, journalists, diplomats and observers – watch these performances and laugh. Or wince. Or worry.

No vetting, checks or propriety

In India, the social media has become a forum for real-time observations. Videos of aircraft taking off from airfields in North and North-West India surfaced over the last few days. Images of troops on the move, check-posts being sealed, convoys heading to forward bases – all were shared either in patriotic eagerness, fear or curiosity. Or senseless tomfoolery. It should have ended there. But it was scooped up by our news producers, laced with fake analysis and packaged as intel. Channels broadcast the ‘Breaking News’ without vetting, without clearance, certainly without care.

It was a case of national security being compromised by national television. As crores of Indians watched ‘news’, an alert and wily viewer was sitting across the border. Pakistan, no stranger to psychological warfare, has often weaponised Indian news broadcasts, gleaning hints, movement patterns and deployments from our media. This is one enemy that does not need satellites or stealth technology – our media hands out satellite feed gift-wrapped in hysterics and xenophobia.

It is this behaviour that led many to blame the TV media for some deadly outcomes of 1999. During the Kargil War, it was the glare of television spotlights – turned on to enable better visual shots during live TV reports – that revealed the position of Indian soldiers to Pakistani snipers. In some instances, soldiers lost their lives. That lesson seems to have not just been ignored, it has also been conveniently erased from institutional memory.

Last week, we saw a return of that deathly glow. In border areas, in the darkness of Government-enforced blackouts, TV reporters donned flak jackets and whispered dramatic bulletins, backlit by blaring sirens. The sirens were studio add-ons, edited in by the news HQs to enhance the drama. And in the real war unfolding on the borders, soldiers were suddenly fighting not just the enemy’s guns, but also the media’s giveaway spotlights.

Not a journalistic lapse alone

This grotesque turn is not a journalistic lapse. It is a civic tragedy. TV journalism, once the bedrock of democratic discourse, has become a parody of itself. Anchors no longer ask questions; they deliver verdicts. Panels no longer debate; they descend into tribal cacophony. War is not reported anymore; it is dramatized, militarised and commodified for mass consumption. Some channels have even used video game footage to better explain Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’. What a shame.

The rot is systemic. Owners, advertisers, corporate and political patrons, and star editors have collectively enabled this perversion. A young boy or girl entering the realm of journalism today is trained not to investigate facts, but to scream out headlines. Their first instinct is not to verify, but to trend. Ratings are everything, nuance is nothing.

To its credit, the Government attempted to rein in the mad and the madness. But advisories aren’t enough; there is a compelling case here to revisit the rules of engagement between the media and national security. Guidelines are needed – clear, punitive and uniformly enforced. Today’s call should not be a plea for censorship, but a demand for sanity. That said, media houses need to be made to reform. Self-regulation has been a farce. If journalism still believes in sanctity, it must self-correct. Editors must reclaim editorial authority. Owners must put nation before warped narrative. Anchors must relearn humility. Journalism was never supposed to be theatre.

The road to redemption will not be easy. But it is necessary. For India deserves better. Our soldiers, who risk their lives without the privilege of cameras, deserve better. Our democracy, bruised by noise and narcissism, deserves better. We, the people, tired of being treated like impressionable fools, deserve better.

Let this be a line in the sand. Let us draw the line between journalism and jingoism, between truth and tamasha. If we do not do that, we will not just lose the plot, we will lose the very purpose of having a free press. That would be a great casualty. That would be a shame.

The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. The writer can be reached on [email protected]. Views expressed are personal