Dr.Fakira Mohan Nahak
THE TELEVISION NEWS INDUSTRY IN ODISHA HAS GONE THROUGH A PROGRESSIVE JOURNEY IN THE PAST TWO DECADES. IN THIS SERIES DR. FAKIRA MOHAN NAHAK PRESENTS THE MEDIA HISTORY BLENDED WITH HIS CLOSE OBSERVATION ON Election COVERAGE.
India is the land of festivals. People get a breather from mundane life by observing various festivals throughout the year. Being the largest democracy in the world, the Election is no less than a festival in India. The onset of election season is nothing but a celebration by some means or other. Starting from the filing of nominations to the announcement of the result, each phase of the election provides people a festive ambience. It’s a blockbuster showtime, be it on the roads by the aspiring candidates or the news anchors on prime time news bulletins on various channels.
Each rally during elections gives you the feel of a festival. The post-result celebration by the winning candidates is not less than that of Holi and Diwali. It’s the icing on the cake when actors turn politician and come to attend rallies and meet the common man. Political mud-slinging during elections are the teasers that people love to enjoy. Parody of Bollywood blockbusters used for sloganeering is the most creative display during elections. Analyzing speeches of candidates is no way less entertaining than any laughter challenge. Election is the biggest entertainer, the biggest show. All sorts of creativity come to the limelight in varied forms.
With mushrooming news channels, digital media and social media platforms, getting every bit of election is just a click away. But that was not the case a few years back. Radio and News Paper were the biggest source of election related news. The newspaper would contain mostly news covering the election related violence and political rallies of prominent candidates. When we discuss ETV Oriya and elections, the first thing that comes to the mind is “Election Express”. For the uninitiated, it’s not a special train launched by the Railway Ministry to run between Ahmedabad to Varanasi or Amethi to Wayanad, but a special program that was successfully designed,planned, experimented and executed by the ETV Oriya News team during the 2004 General Elections.
The motto behind the programme was to assess the sentiment of the general public, know their aspiration, their concerns and excitement, the preparation of different parties, leaders and candidates at the grass root level and their agenda to address the issues of the public. In the run-up to the 2004 general election and state assembly election, as all the 147 assembly constituencies in the state were gearing up for the polls, ETV came up with this unique concept of Election Express.
The Election Express was designed by Nilambar Rath, the then ETV Oriya News co-ordinator and editorial head. Everyone in the team gave their best and left no stones unturned to make it a success. Covering 14,000 kilometres, 147 assembly constituencies, 30 districts and more than two crore voters in 42 days was not a mean feat. It was a challenge for everyone to make such a big plan a success.
Sisir Kumar Bhattamishra, one of the senior reporters of the channel working in the Bhubaneswar bureau office took upthe challenge and covered all the 147 assembly constituencies on a pre-determined schedule and reported on them regularly.Video Journalists Pankaj Sahu and Pramod Pattnaik worked with Sisir Bhattamishra in the field for the entire period of journey.The outcome was a milestone in the history of election coverage by media. It was a huge success.
Two vehicles were decorated by stickers of ETV logo and specially designed logo of Election Express. Ramesh Kuanr from graphics team was in charge of designing the logo and the vehicle. Each vehicle was equipped with a camera, a video journalist and an assistant.
They started the shooting the journey, roads, people all the way as if it was for a travelogue. All these shots helped to connect with the viewers with a personal touch. The Election Express team met with everyone from the village to the city on the way. The team discussed their lifestyles, behaviours, local issues, local leaders and their attitude towards common public. The team also took reactions of local intellectuals, journalists and writers. Covering the diversity of the people, the local language, the culture, and the problems made the program popular.
There was no high speed broadband for sending audio-visual data. So on the day of the shooting, the video journalist used to contact a bus driver to send the recorded tape to Bhubaneswar bureau office.After collecting the cassette, the team used to prepare the final content for the program. Whenever the shoot happened near the areas where the channel’s 2MB centres were there, the cameraman used to send the cassette to the Hyderabad news desk from there and the program used to get packaged from Hyderabad office. Mayadhar Pradhan,Birendranath Pradhan and Mitrabhanu Nayak were in charge of producing the programme.
After 42 days of continuous reporting, a studio discussion was finally held on the reactions of people across the state and the experience of reporting from ground zero for such a longer time. In addition to that, another special program called “Election Watch” was also planned and executed to cover the details of election at the national level. Such a series of efforts was instrumental in establishing ETV among the people.
The election express program was a huge success. The same success formula was adopted by other regional channels of the network during the elections in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, West Bengal and Gujarat. The ETV Oriya news team became a guiding force for their peers of other channels.
A technical team from ETV Oriya, including Nilambar Rath, Srinibas Mahapatra, Smruti Ranjan Behera were constantly working with teams from other states for the smooth execution of Election Express program. This successful experimentation of ETV Oriya inspired other national television channels on a later stage. They also loved the concept of Election Express. NDTV started programmes on the similar lines of Election Express in 2006, TV Today Network (Aaj Tak) in 2009 and ABP News recently in 2022. Of course, all of these channels used specially designed buses. Later, during the panchayat elections of 2007, a similar program called “Panchayat Express” was launched by ETV Oriya. Similarly, during the 2012 panchayat elections in Odisha, Nakshatra News, MBC TV and STV Samachar prepared similar programs like Election Express.
It would not be wrong to say that ETV Oriya’s Election Express in March-April of 2004 became a benchmark and helped other channels across the globe to produce programs on the similar lines during elections. The Cable News Network (CNN), one of the oldest cable and satellite channels in the world had used the Election Express in the American Presidential Election of November 2004. CNN has consistently used the Election Express in the run-up to the next presidential elections.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the world’s oldest broadcasting company, also used the Election Express during the 2019 general election. But with the slightest change, the BBC has managed to capture the attention of viewers by designing special coaches of train instead of cars or buses for the election express program. A research paper on ETV Oriya’s Election Express program has been published in an international research journal by this author in 2020.
All these imply the uniqueness and importance of the program “Election Express” whose concept was first germinated by our own channel. It was indeed a benchmark in the field of political communication and television journalism. Therefore, there is no second thought in accepting the fact that Election Express is a contribution of ETV Oriya to the world of television.
(Dr. Fakira Mohan Nahak is a writer and former media professional. He is currently working as the Head of the Department of University Institute of Media Studies, Chandigarh University at Mohali, Punjab. Views are Personal)