Prithwish
It has been long alleged that Delhi, deprived of seeing Bollywood celebs, gets easily starstruck. I didn't believe it at all when I came to the city as I thought it must be a rumour! How can people living in the Indian capital be unruly but sadly my impression about Delhi has changed recently. I was a witness to a few things which I think I should have never seen.
It makes sense that photographers and cameraperson shout their lungs out to get the best pic of a top notch celeb, whose photos are of great sales value! But leave aside such these celebs, Delhi simply cannot handle the ecstacy of seeing personalities who don't even feature in the industry's A list.
I was at Ministry of Sound some days back, happily sipping away "juice" (he he) and listening to the not so common voice of Simon Webbe, the British pop star and the former member of all boys band Blue when suddenly people went berserk!
It got so unruly that I could hardly hear him sing. All that I could hear was absurd requests flying in from all quarters and people yelling at the top of their voice. It got so bad that Simon had to himself first beg with his hands folded to people to stop behaving like hooligans and then threatened that he would not perform if the crowd did not control themselves.
What a shame!
Next came Neha Dhupia - the "Sheesha", "Julie" fame girl -- known for her steamy dances and bold roles! An eye-candy for sure! ;) but photographers were crazy as soon as she stepped inside the venue (not to forget she was almost 3 hours late) and then the television cameramen lost it as they tried getting an exclusive footage of the svelte heroine! It looked like she has won an Academy Award! Gosh!
First there was pushing and pulling, then came abuses and to top it all people started threatening each other. Neha must have also wondered why she's getting so much of media attention? So did we!
Delhi is a little strange place to be in! I still don't know why people go ga-ga over celebs! It's their job to come for promotions and it's our job to report about them and try and get exclusives! (It's bread and butter you know!) But why behave like lunatics! It's a shame! What would the entire Bollywood fraternity think about Delhi - a place which boasts of it's culture? And then we should think what impression would the audience have about us looking at these alarming footages beamed through the national television channels!
Time to think Delhi ...
Photo Courtesy: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/City_Supplements/Delhi_Times/Neha_got_mobbed_/rssarticleshow/2183081.cms
Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Delhi - easily starstruck?
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Opinion: Who is an entertainment journalist?
Prithwish
I was going through the morning newspapers today and I got a little confused! The suppliments catering to entertainment/lifestyle news made me question myself what does covering entertainment/lifestyle mean? Is it just providing information about stupid page 3 parties or who's dating whom, which covers most of the space and then the rest is taken up by adverts or is it something more than mere titillation or yellow journalism?
It's been a while that I have been covering entertainment/lifestyle, say around 3 years (radio & print) but when i started off it was more meaningful than what it is today. we had to dig out stories, journalists were well read and some that i have met truly understood cinema and had the passion for the subject and that was the reason which made them so good. That was the reason why they chose to be entertainment reporters but now I hardly meet people knowing anything beyond who's dating whom.
I guess that sells but does it give pleasure to people covering such frivolous news bits? This again makes me think -- are they covering entertainment/lifestyle because they chose to or was it because they had to?
I guess the second one holds true for many people involved in the profession of high-life, paarties and star-studded extravaganzas but we all have to draw a line as to till what level should we lower the bar.
Entertainment/lifestyle reporting should not be about dimples and pimples and who wore what and who's abusing whom.
It is much more meaningful than these petty stories running through the day.
Reporting for cinema, fashion or music needs knowledge about the subject but I'm sure most of us can count only a handful names whose reviews you like reading or seeing. Most reviews are heavily opinionated without giving reasons for it. A film review dissects a movie, compares it with others and discusses the style, narration, script and screenplay. How many reviews today have that?
Even stories on fashion -- forget writing about experiments with cuts and silhouettes, just write about what models wore and what colours were used. For heaven's sake -- we all can see that in the pictures!
In music, the scenario is better -- thank god!! Some of the writers are really good but again reporting for entertainment has a benchmark and its reporting does not end with just saying what the event was all about, how people went ga-ga over it and how many songs the album has! It needs in-depth analysis which only a few does -- but they do it well!
Yesterday I was seeing stories on the death of "Tulsi" famed Smriti Irani from the cult television serial -- Kyunki Saans Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi -- and in the stories nowhere did anyone use a tv critics comment on how the character became so successful and i still remember this character has catapulted Star's rating to number 1. An analysts quote on all this would have been a good angle but anyways I guess people these days are happy with vox-pop journalism.
No matter what, it's a cause for concern for all those doing 
entertainment/lifestyle reporting. Are we doing what we want to or are we just filling up pages of newspapers and doing tv stories just to see our names on them! If that's the case -- can't we work a bit more. Entertainment reporting is one of the oldest professions and it started with the success of newspapers in India. We can do a little more to dish out good in-depth stories can't we? We must remember that a country so engaged in entertainment would lap up anything that we give them but that should not make us relax. We can only be respected as an entertainment journalist when we do good stories and that involves us becoming well read and we should probe and analyse stories rather than just pushing them out.
entertainment/lifestyle reporting. Are we doing what we want to or are we just filling up pages of newspapers and doing tv stories just to see our names on them! If that's the case -- can't we work a bit more. Entertainment reporting is one of the oldest professions and it started with the success of newspapers in India. We can do a little more to dish out good in-depth stories can't we? We must remember that a country so engaged in entertainment would lap up anything that we give them but that should not make us relax. We can only be respected as an entertainment journalist when we do good stories and that involves us becoming well read and we should probe and analyse stories rather than just pushing them out.It's understandable that the pressure is immense to produce more and more such stories but can't we do one big in-depth entertainment/lifestyle story a week? Think over it!
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