I was just going through my Instagram feed when I bumped into this recent picture of Doordardshan’s iconic veteran news anchors Salma Sultana and Shammi Narang. Looking at this picture I was feeling nostalgic but at the same time had various waves of thoughts running through my head.
And TBH, initially, the faces in the picture looked familiar but I couldn’t recognise them until I read their names in the caption. Salma Sultana was one of the most credible journalists of her time. Her signature style was a rose or a dahlia tucked into one side of their hair and her reporting style became synonymous with news.
And Shammi Narang who became the face of Doordarshan with his unique reporting style was one of the most ethical, credible and unbiased reporters, India has witnessed. He’s now the voice of Delhi Metro.
Believe it or not but their picture together reminded me of the golden era of journalism and the kind of reporting we had back in the day. The way they carried themselves with calmness and still managed to put across their point without howling is something that this generation of news anchors need to incorporate.
The way they managed to report without any biases or picking a side is something we can’t see in these times. They knew where to draw the line between their personal and professional opinions. The way they let people form their own opinion without shoving their perceptions down the audience’s throat was great.
I mean just think about it, we had a limited series of news channels and yet their sources were credible, we didn’t have a trend of fake news back or selective information back in the day.
Seeing their picture together makes me relaise the poor journalistic practices that we’re following these days. I wish we could go back to the times when news was informative and not an entertaining screaming match.