Hari's Corner
Humour, comics, tech, law, software, reviews, essays, articles and HOWTOs intermingled with random philosophy now and thenNews show anchor creates a stunning record
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Humour and Nonsense by
Hari
Posted on Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 10:09 IST (last updated: Tue, Nov 16, 2010 @ 11:59 IST)
Papa Hari News Service
In an incident that stunned the entire media establishment in the world and millions of people who regularly watch TV news shows, a television show anchor actually allowed a guest with an opposing viewpoint to the network's predominant ideology complete a sentence in full without any interruption whatsoever (phew!). Instead of cutting in with commonly used phrases like "Mr. X, Mr. X, what about your views on the larger issue here...?", "I'm sorry to have to cut you here, but we're running out of time", "Mr. Y wants to answer your allegations. Mr. X, excuse me" or "Mr. X, can you please answer the question directly!" the news anchor actually waited for the guest to complete the sentence.
The incident proved a major embarrassment for the news network in question announcing that the anchor would be suspended pending further inquiry into the incident. "It's totally unacceptable that Mr. X was allowed this freedom! What the hell is going on with freedom of speech these days? The anchor has been suspended pending further inquiry."
People who watched the programme were stunned too that something like this could be allowed to happen on a professional media network. "This was inexplicable! I couldn't believe my eyes or ears," said one news show addict, "Something like this has never happened before and I bet it won't happen again." Others expressed their displeasure that freedom of speech actually was allowed to reign on a news show. "What the hell happened to media tradition and values?" said an old timer, sighing. "New fangled notions like balanced debates, freedom of expression and professionalism are slowly seeping into the system. This is a sad day for the whole world!"
Other news networks expressed their glee at the offending channel's discomfiture, but nevertheless tightened up their own norms on interruptions by news show hosts. New regulations were issued by a rival network who announced that henceforth no political opponents would be allowed to speak for five full seconds without interruption and if they actually started making sense, their words would be completely bleeped out as though they were mouthing obscenities. "We try to maintain a complete balance!" said a CEO of a famous news network. "Our channel: our rules!" he added defensively.
The Papa Hari Thought Police who swooped down to arrest the said offender however found nothing but a rusty old boat anchor instead of a human being behind the whole episode. "That explains it," said the investigating officer. "Obviously the boat anchor couldn't interrupt in the middle of a sentence. It is an inanimate object. Later the network's media production head admitted on severe interrogation that the move to use a boat anchor instead of a human being was part of their mega cost cutting drive."
The world heaved a huge sigh of relief following the disclosure as the boat anchor was taken away to a port's scrapyard for disposal.
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2 comment(s)
Comment by Tim (visitor) on Sat, Dec 25, 2010 @ 03:38 IST #
Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Sat, Dec 25, 2010 @ 09:48 IST #