Why Such Hype Over Arushi?

As I sit here an excited reporter is ranting, raving, screaming on Star TV about the Arushi murder case. His voice is hoarse, breaking, he is obviously working very hard. Or is he so emotional because he is feeling sorry for Arushi, then what about the thousands of girls who go missing, are threatened, beaten, and starved if they don’t go into prostitution in the country? How much should he cry for all of them?

Why has the media invested so much time and effort on one murder when there are a hundred rapes that have taken place today, yes, this very day?

(For those who aren’t familiar with the case, here’s the low-down on the Arushi murder case. Fourteen year old Arushi was found murdered in her room in a tony area of New Delhi, and her father, a doctor, was the prime suspect. The reason: she was suspected of having an affair with a servant, who was also found dead on the terrace of Arushi’s house.)

The anchor at the studio is acting, no, hamming it even more than Shammi Kapoor in his heydays. On second thought he was aping the ponytail who conducts “San sani” and doing it quite badly at that.

“Mobile phone… blah… blah… blah….”

“Hatya Kand… blah… blah… blah….”

“Kya kaun doshi hai… blah… blah… blah….”

He goes on and on and on… I have lost track, switched off.

Admitted it is a sensational murder case and the truth must be found out. But then what are the police for? The anchor is acting like the compere of an award ceremony, and he is quite animated and involved, pointing his finger at the screen, screaming into the camera, repeating words unnecessarily, in fact, making a complete ass of himself.

The channel is overdoing it, somebody must tell this man off, I am getting irritated instead of informed, and they are replaying statements as if the audience was some dummy who can’t understand the language.

Will someone tell this man to shut up? Will someone stuff some cotton in his mouth, gag him and throw him out of the studio? Why is he breaking the rule every journalist is taught in elementary journalism class one of “objectivity”?

I think something bad is cooking. The whole edifice is coming down like a pack of cards. What is on show, so spectacularly, so vividly is the ham-handed way in which things are handled in India, where emotion is rife that even the once suave anchor is made into a screaming, platitude-spouting idiot.

So much for objectivity in journalism.