"Pranab Mukherji expresses shock at Ganguly's omission from the team."

"Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee believes Ganguly was omitted for reasons other than cricket."

"Jagmohan Dalmiya writes to BCCI President citing examples when a player was recalled at the Board President's request."

In the last year and a half, my disillusionment with the media (both print as well as television) has grown exponentially. This is partly due to the fact that I was living with someone who was working first with Balaji and later with Miditech - so her insider views on the industry made a major contribution to my dislike for it. However, the major reason for my disgust with the media is the way it attempts to create news out of no news.

The Ganguly issue - if it is an issue at all - only strengthens my belief that most Indian news channels today are simply not worth watching. News channels have been giving half an hour long reports that show nothing but a few prominent people from various professions - mostly Bengalis - being 'shocked' and 'stunned' at Ganguly being left out of the team. There were many such reports but the following are specially noteworthy.

1) Some middle-aged Bengali movie star claiming on camera that "Had Gavaskar thrown Ganguly out, I would have accepted it gladly. Had Kapil Dev thrown Ganguly out, I would have accepted it then too. They are cricketing greats, and I respect their judgement. But the person who has thrown him out is Kiran More - just what exactly are his credentials?"

Oh come on man! What exactly are YOUR credentials to make that claim? What do you even know about cricket? The Aussie selection board is full of people who were never really cricket stars, and they have consistently been providing champions over the last 15 years, if not more.

2) This one was a classic example of someone trying weirdo antics to get back into the news after his unceremonious exit from power: Lalu Prasad Yadav saying on camera "Sourav apna padosi hai, acha khiladi hai. Usko team se nikaal dena bilkul galat hai. Desh ke liye usne bahut kuch kiya hai - usko aise nahi nikalna chahiye."

Well Lalu-ji, I agree with most of what you said, but whether or not it is right to leave him out of the team is none of your and mine business. The selection committe must have had its own reasons, and let us respect those.

3) This was the most incredible one: Some random MP called Mohan Singh (or something like that) shouting away to glory in the Parliament talking about why Ganguly's exclusion from the team is unfair. And to top it up, he later said on camera that "Ganguly issue has affected millions of hearts in India. Since Parliament is a mirror of the Indian citizen's feelings, therefore it is only fair that the Ganguly issue be discussed in the Parliament."

This was not all. Somnath Chatterjee, the Lok Sabha speaker, actually agreed to his request! Come on guys, do we not have enough and more issues to worry about already!? Or does the Parliament have that much free time - despite Volcker reports and bomb scares - that it cant find any better topic of discussion than Ganguly's exclusion.

The new team (i.e. the one without Ganguly in it) has not played a single match yet, and half the country is screaming itself hoarse claiming that this team is not good enough. The politicians, useless as ever, are grabbing this opportunity to find reasons to be on TV. The more useless the politician, the more the noise. The movie stars who do not have any movies or even serials to act in, are utilising their spare time singing songs about Ganguly and hoping some news channel will have enough lack of substantial information to air them. Last, but not the least, a certain section of the general public which is not in the habit of doing anything constructive is taking this opportunity to show off their pseudo-leadership skills by going on hunger strikes and making demonstrations and - in short - doing nothing but wasting their time through nonsensical activity, and wasting others' time by disrupting normal life in kolkata. Many of the people in this group happen to be students who just want to be on TV. In my opinion, the noise made by these people is nothing but hot air coming out of an orifice! Let me not elaborate on that.

It is true that the weirdo antics Indians attempt do not help the situation at hand in any way. But the insane degree of irresponsibility shown by the news channels in actually promoting this sort of madness by giving it long hours of coverage is even more disillusioning. What is even worse is that very often the news is not even factually correct.

One such occasion was the July 26th, 2005, when Mumbai was flooded due to incessant rains. Every single news channel wrote in rudely large-sized font "Breaking news: Powai dam breaks". What they didn't know was that Powai doesn't even HAVE a dam!

There was a time when the Indians' only update was the 8:30pm news bulletin on DD-1. They had twenty minutes to cover everything useful in the country and the news was concise, substantial, and worth listening to. Today's news channels, thanks to their 24-hour availability, have mostly useless stuff on them and also share this tendency to devote an entire day to a single news item - be it an item at all or not.

Perhaps it will take one responsible channel to put the Indian news industry in some kind of order. Or maybe these channels will continue going downhill and reach a point of no return and, in the process, leave the Indian viewer with a completely skewed sense of information. Where things go from here, only time will tell, but for now I think it makes a lot more sense to just listen to the headlines from several different channels and then try to make your own judgement. The news reports and their conclusions on TV are perhaps best left ignored.