Doesn’t fluff its lines, a few stray blips notwithstanding
Rumors about the ethics of news journalism follows a freewheeling but troubling path in Season 2 Broken News Professional ethics and personal prejudice collide in a vicious and bruising battle for supremacy between two television channels.
The eight-episode Zee5 series, fronted by Sonali Bendre, Jaideep Ahlawat and Shriya Pilgaonkar, explores the maze of an all-out war of agendas and belief systems and presents a compelling story of a clutch of journalists who toil to verify truth from lies, sansani to satya (truth). , and publicity to public interest.
Set in the capital city of a large state where an opposition leader (Sandesh Kulkarni) is running a political campaign against the Chief Minister (Srikant Yadav), the show, adapted from the BBC One series, centers on two leading national news channels who take sides and constantly throw at each other, to the ground. Reflects the bitterness of the clash of ideologies unfolding in the larger arena.
Broken News S2Executed with consistent skill and awareness of the times, it is a political crime story, a newsroom drama and a revenge story that builds its plot around recent events in real world news.
It spans references to data theft, troll armies, electoral bonds, a mass suicide, an app-based financing racket, the death of a social media influencer, a lunch scam, the mysterious death of a geologist, an attempted cover-up. A water pollution case and, inevitably, big industry seeking to control the flow of news and the exercise of political power.
Is one season of the series too much to handle? It probably is. Broken News S2 Sometimes a touch is underestimated as it has to resort to hasty board strokes. Moreover, it creates some confusion when it takes a simplistic approach to drawing battle lines between opposing worldviews.
If it doesn’t greatly harm the overall result, the script ensures that enough is happening in the narrative at a pace that negates the possibility of momentary snags getting stuck and slowing down the show.
In the follow-up to the 2022 newsroom drama series directed by Vinay Waikul, writer Sambit Mishra returns to journalistic tidbits to craft an intriguing story that touches on relevant issues with the seriousness they deserve. Not that all of it hits home with equal force, but some of it does Broken News Season 2 Doesn’t strike a chord and provoke thought.
The show moves through several events with strong and steady performances from the lead actors and supporting cast (Sanjita Bhattacharya, Faisal Rashid, Taruk Raina, Indranil Sengupta and two important news additions, Geetika Vidya Ahlian and Akshay Oberoi). Which evokes different reactions from two news channels run by two people who have different approaches to journalism.
Jousting for power, pelf and position, journos air their feelings and beliefs in editorial meetings and prime time shows. Josh ended Season 1 with Radha Bhargava (Pilgaonkar) of Awaaz Bharti, a channel led by Amina Qureshi (Bendre), after Dipankar Sanyal (Ahlawat), editor-in-chief of 24/7 Network, called her “antagonistic”. National”.
Halfway through the opening episode of season 2, Radha gets bail. She returns to her ongoing spat with Deepankar, who, on his part, doesn’t budge an inch from chasing her eyeballs. Terms like ‘quality signaling’ and ‘confirmation bias’ are heard in debates among journalists.
Radha, young, uncompromising and married to a cause, seeks to harness the power of Satya as a means of settling her score with the man responsible for her stay in prison where she has been humiliated and tortured for over a month.
In the process of trying to right the wrongs done to her, Radha appears to blur the line that separates her from journalist and activist. It’s a tightrope walk. There is a price to pay as Radha opens up various fronts and is immersed in the complexities of multiple storylines.
In her own newsroom, Radha has to argue with her mentor and friend, Amina, an old-school journalist who swears by objectivity. Those who speak the truth, Amina says, are often isolated. He accuses Radha of letting her anger get in the way of her journalism.
Outside their newsroom stands the towering and pro-establishment Dipankar, who brings a third way to the news business. TRP means the world to him. A self-styled voice of the nation, he signed his news show “Ye Sawal Hai Desh Ka“
Rehana Ahmed (Ohlian), who moved from reporting on Bollywood stars to hardcore news and anchoring shows, represents another face of journalism. From a disadvantaged background, work is a daily grind and a necessity. “Patriots are killed” are the words with which he closes his show
A single mother struggling to get ahead in life and make sure her son gets into a quality school, Rehana often offends her boss at Josh 24/7 with her impulsive ways. He is taken to task but continues regardless.
And then there’s Ranjit “Ronnie” Savarwal (Oberoi), who takes over as Awaz Bharti’s business head as a representative of a tech giant gearing up to roll out thousands of EVs in India. The assumption that news as an assembly line commodity is meant to be bought and consumed like any other commodity in the market represents one of the main strands of the story.
As in Season 1, newsroom showdowns and shenanigans in S2 are held together by performances. While Sonali Bendre and Jaideep Ahlawat give pitch-perfect interpretations of two different types of journalists, the real star of Season 2 is Shriya Pilgaonkar. He traverses a whole range of mercurial emotions with impressive conviction.
Geetika Vidya Ahlian, as a conflicted and often interrupted reporter, oscillates between the highs and lows of the character’s pressure without missing a beat. Akshay Oberoi runs a news operation as a sophisticated corporate honcho, with a keen understanding of the issues at play, the conflicts and challenges the man faces.
Despite some stray blips, Broken News S2 Don’t fluff his lines.
