Breaking heads

These gregarious talkers are serving one noble purpose: making us flip the news channels and move into the more consoling, non-real world of serials, dance programmes and movies.

All these talking heads on telly. Where do they all come from? When a gruesome long drawn-out event like the terrorist attack on Mumbai takes place, we understand the need for television news channels to pack things up as much as possible. As we watched with adrenalin-pumped horror the actual war being waged on the streets of Mumbai, we were awe-struck, too shocked to want anything beyond the images driving the horrible message home of the nation being caught unaware. But with the end of the siege, came the torrent of opinion from commentators. To quote the editor of the Manchester Guardian C.P. Scott, “Comment is free, but facts are sacred”. It seems that many of our TV pundits — from those who suggest we “carpet-bomb Pakistan” to those who are still stuck in the ‘I hate George Bush’ zone — have been leaving out the second part of Scott’s sentence. Perhaps, these gregarious talkers are serving one noble purpose: making us flip the news channels and move into the more consoling, non-real world of serials, dance programmes and movies.

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