I think what national columnists think!

While I consider most of Indian national media to be absolute crap, and Hindi television media to be the worst afflicted, there are some channels and shows which do stand out.

First, I am a big fan of the Lok Sabha TV. The first time I came across the channel was when I was surfing through cable, and I came across a show, if i remember correctly, on Indian aviation. Now that is something which really interests me, and I stopped to watch the show. I realized that the panel they have is not the usual suspects, the one 'expert' for all fields. They were actually men of position, and everyone on the set - the anchor, the guests - were very mature in their discussion. I was aware that such a channel had been launched recently, but this was the first time I had a chance to see it.

I've watched it a lot more, and I've always found maturity, objectivity, and absolutely no scope for sensationalism and tabloidism. They have a mix of lot of good things actually.

And then, another day, I was watching Sahara Samay, just another of those moments when I stopped at the channel while surfing, and again I thought that this was very good journalism, and I was actually surprised that there was no juicy non-news that other channels paraded as news, and again, there was no sensationalism.

The point is that there is a columnist in The Indian Express, Shailja Bajpayee, and she actually mentioned the exact two channels in her column for their quality. So I am not the only one who notices these things then.

That being said, I am glad that in this age of loud and tasteless television, there are actually television channels that you can watch without being hurried.

Finally, I feel that some channels need to change their names. Star News is not a news channel. They are a tabloid, through and through. They should get rid of the pretenses. The same with India TV. Most of the 'news' they have is juicy tabloid stuff. Its a pity that a quality Hindi journalist such as Rajat Sharma has to spend time there. Also, when Star Gold first started, they focused on quality movies that were actually gold, but today I find that most of their movies are movies that are unheard of, and very new. Also, the channels that aren't Indian, such as Travel & Living and Discovery, have much better shows on India than all the Indian channels! Surely some domestic television executive will get a hint.