TELEVISTA
Anchors should look natural
Amita Malik

THE life of a media columnist is not a rosy one. I am glad that some media colleagues and friends realise that and often ask me how hard it is. Before I go on, I must confess I still enjoy it, even if it means missing family and other events because one has to stick to the TV set out of a sense of duty. I am also often asked whether I have to watch even programmes which I do not enjoy. Of course. Even if I squirm through them or sit through a programme by some anchor or participant who is, to put it crudely, a pain in the neck, it is always a lesson in patience and tolerance.

For instance, I was asked last week which is the most irritating programme I have watched recently. I will say without hesitation that it is a bizarre programme called ‘Grand Stand’ on ‘Headlines Today’. Bizarre because a woman called Mandira, who is supposed to be an anchor, goes through the most extraordinary physical and mental contortions to convey what I suppose she considers an original way of conveying news. Well let me say straightaway that the ultimate effect is of a third-rate character actress doing a third-rate display of character-acting, which is not really the function of a news anchor.

Whoever thought up that one from the channel seems to have very strange ideas, indeed. So bizarre is the programme that I sometimes think it cannot be true. So for many days now I switch it on gingerly to make sure, and then switch off hastily.

My other bugbear is TV personalities, some of them well established veterans, who keep on advertising themselves. I have never found Prannoy Roy or Karan Thapar or Suhashini Haider telling viewers about their own prowess. They leave it to viewers to judge. But some of their immediate colleagues go over the top, emphasising their own excellence or that of their channels, which surely is put to the test when top international and national awards are announced from time to time for individuals as well as channels.

Frankly, some national, or self-appointed "national" awards are announced with monotony for the same programmes and individuals year after year. So naturally many viewers feel suspicious that they are fixed. Which is a pity. I feel that the names of the judges should be made more public so that the value of the awards and the integrity with which they are assessed come through clearly.

Then there are those females who anchor "night out" programmes, which are the page 3 TV equivalents of page 3 in newspapers. The Anisha Baig tribe of anchors has a fixed smile, which is so artificial that it does not fool anyone. Some of the younger ones speak too fast and in shrill tones, which can be called falsetto, to use an old-fashioned term, and sometimes they wear clothes to match.

They neither dress nor speak like that in real life, and I know most of them. I would say they are well dressed and well spoken in real life. Some are very attractive in real life. They do not have to put on any act on the small screen.

The worst in this sphere are the women who anchor sports news. They feel it obligatory to wear tight long pants and stand to talk to make sure they look sporty enough. I would cite the examples of Neha Bharadwaj on CNN-IBN and Sonali Chander on NDTV-24, who wear anything from sarees to salwar kameez or churidars and, of course, the occasional trousers and shirt, and look natural and relaxed in all of them, as that is probably the way they dress in real life.

Believe me, the wrong clothes can unmake a star while relaxed clothes leave them smiling and popular.