Looks like stereotypes aren't partial to English news coverage alone. Last night's carpool ride with a Hindi journalist was illuminating. He was complaining of the new in-thing - the minute-long story (as opposed to the now outmoded 90 second story). And the unwritten rule in writing them apparently involves the usage of Idhar, Udhar and Lekin (meaning 'here', 'there' and 'but' in Hindi). His example was simple enough, but please excuse my Hindi. I can vouch for the translation though!
Voiceover 1 - Idhar sansad main Congress ne bataaya ki Bihar assembly dissolution sahi tha. (Here in the parliament, the Congress party said that dissolving the Assembly in Bihar was the right thing to do).
Soundbite 1 - some politician mouthing off.
Voiceover 2 - Udhar BJP ne arop lagaya ki Congress galat tha. (There the BJP said, the Congress were in the wrong).
Soundbite 2 - some BJP politician yelling into the boom mic.
Voiceover 3 - Lekin, is maamle mein kaun sahi hain, sirf waqt hi bataayega.(But only time will tell who is right)
Key: (For those who aren't working in tv news).
Voicover - That part of a tv news 'story' when a disembodied voice speaks over visuals.
Soundbite - That part of story when a part of someone's interview is cut and spliced into the narrative.
What is the tv news world coming to? People, do you really want to be fed crap like this? Zzrrrppkkffff.
5 comments:
Zzrrrppkkffff is right. But hear this from a journo who still prefers the print option, there's nothing like a longish piece to avoid propagating crap. If you want to tell a story in a minute and a half - worse still a minute - crap is all you'll get. Bad, quick crap at that.
A minute long story? Boy the things you don't realise when you're just a leeetle viewer...!
Hal
Still prefers the print option? Disgrace to your race, i say :-)
Idhar...Udhar...Lekin - That is so true of TV news stories nowadays.
Kunda you are funny!
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