TV Channels and the US President

(Please read in the spirit of “Blind men and the Elephant”)

A number of TV news channels came to see a US President. One was the first to click him stepping off the plane. It went running and screaming “Exclusive footage of the President’s feet landing on Indian soil.” Another got a side angle of his dancing wife: Exclusive No. 2. Another found out all about his favourite food while yet another about his views on some trivial issue that concerned no-one. Soon the number of exclusives ran into hundreds.

Meanwhile real issues that concerning the people of the land were all relegated firmly to the background as thousands of hours of TV footage and millions of viewers watched the spectacle of a president’s personal likes, dislikes, tourist visits, dance steps, political clichés and diet and no-one actually seemed to know what the actual political and economic ramifications were of such a visit…

This version by Sunil Rajguru