TV debates in Tamil Channels
Between 7 pm and 10 pm every day, all the Tami channels telecast debates on various themes, whether relevant or irrelevant. The quality of the debates are highly deplorable. Among the political parties only BJP and Congress are represented. None of the regional parties take part. The so called 'social workers' also join the panel. There are ready made panelists (other than political party spokespersons) who can participate in any channel, any time on any topic. These panelists can talk (most of the time shout) on theme ranging from rural politics to international politics, science and technology, nuclear physics, rocket science, kapadi to international chess, cricket or olympics, etc. They use languages which are not of good taste. How can a single person be an authority on all the subjects? They come to the debate with assumed information and start shouting in the discussions, to win a point. I see many times, the panelists with real knowledge go unnoticed, unheard and remain silent, because some other panelist intervenes often countering the points without waiting for his turn.
More than this, the channels are highly biased, based on their affiliation. In most of the debates, either Congress or BJP gets isolated. They make 3 panelists to oppose one person. I am not able to understand this logic of lining up three persons against one.
The big question is what the listeners get ultimately in these debates. Only the noise prevails.
After Sathyam TV incident, wherein a caller abused in vulgar terms the Chief Minsiter of Tamil Nadu and the woman panelist, a time has come that the TV channels should introspect among themselves and produce a decent, healthy and balanced (without bias) debates, so that the audience get the right information.
Temporarily, I have stopped watching Tamil TV channel debates.