‘And Rajiv Tyagi dropped dead.’ The format of debates on Indian Media needs to change. And it needs to change now

Congress spokesperson and party leader Rajiv Tyagi died on Wednesday evening right after participating in a TV debate show. Tyagi who looked hale and hearty before the TV debate show had even put out a tweet announcing he will be joining a debate show at 5 PM. But merely a  couple of hours later–after participating in the mind-numbing noise-battle of a national TV channel– Tyagi dropped dead due to a massive cardiac arrest.

Tyagi’s death has sent the entire political landscape of India and the public into a deep cryogen chamber of introspection. An introspection where we need to pose tough yet fair questions to ourselves.

Are these TV debates where the mere qualification of appearing is having a superior ‘lung-power’ really worth our time and worth all the trouble for these spokespersons to go to? Have we really run out of entertainment options that we find comfort in the volatility and bickering of news anchors and political party spokespersons?

As much as we’d like to blame the like of these TV channels and their anchors of dialling up the noise meter whenever they appear in front of our TV screen—aren’t we as the audience also an accomplice who has let this rot fester and grow for so long?

While Sambit Patra took repeated potshots at Rajiv Tyagi, his coterie of supporters sitting at the comfort of their home must have been cheering at his flamboyancy but not many would have understood the psychological toll such scathing personal attacks could have on an individual.

And then the mindless trolls started trending some acrimonious hashtags accusing Sambit Patra of Rajiv Tyagi’s death. Sambit might have been wrong but he was merely doing what he had been programmed to do over the years by the ridiculous charts of TRP and the ecosystem of TV debating that has created Sambits all around. Singling out him will mean that we are again just looking for a scapegoat.

Not to speak ill of the departed, but, Rajiv Tyagi was part of the same ecosystem when he crossed the line and said some god-awful words to Amish Devgn during his live TV show. Tyagi grew within the same system and so did Sambit Patra.

Therefore, accusing Sambit or Rohit Sardana of Rajiv Tyagi’s death will be buffoonery of the highest extent–which pretty sure Congress is doing at the moment.

The biggest casualty of our derisive TV debate culture is that the youth is misguided. Inadvertently, a message is sent to the youngsters that to win a debate, an individual needs to screech at the top of their voice and hurl the choicest of the abuse to make a point. This is the new normal that we are teaching our little children growing up and the thought is scary that if they grow up and chart down this eerily same path, then we would be failed as guides and as mentors.

We are taught in Journalism classes that there are four types of noise that act as a barrier in the communication process–physical, physiological, psychological, and semantic. In the case of Indian News TV shows, each of the four aforementioned noises is dialled up by a factor of 100 and it becomes almost incomprehensible to absorb anything substantiative from the news other than learning new slangs and some pitiful rhyming sentences masqueraded as poetry.

It is high time for the TV channel owners, editors and anchors to introspect on how some in the industry have reduced these news debates into a meaningless, poisonous and potentially fatal activity. And most importantly, the viewers need to draw the line because the TRP’s of these channels only go up when people tune in to watch these clown-fests.