He was interacting with post-graduate students of University of Pune and journalists in a program titled “Journalism: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” organized by the Pune Journalists Association on Thursday.

Dua cited recent floods in Delhi as an example and said that some of the channels sounded the capital’s doom not once but several times over with headlines flashing “Delhi is drowning,” “Delhi is gone, pack your bags and leave,” etc.

These channels needlessly created fear psychosis among people and this was simply ridiculous, he said. “It was just a mockery, and there was nothing journalistic in it. The channels resorted to something that was like low-cost entertainment reality shows,” Dua noted.

Dua said the so-called flood in Delhi was a prime-example of how low these channels can stoop to increase their TRPs. He also referred to the sensationalized airing of incidents like an image of Hanuman appearing on a tomato and the case of the five-year-old boy Prince who fell into a tube-well hole.

Dua said that hours are spent on covering such news, which he likened to entertainment magazines. He decried the tendency among the channels to call themselves “news channels” and said some of the magazines like “Playboy” and “Debonair” never claimed they were into news as they mainly restricted themselves to producing what they are best at. “That is being straightforward. But some channels despite remaining far way form news call themselves news channels,” he lamented. “They,” he said, “should stop such pretensions.”

“The job of news should be in the hands of experts, highly experienced and senior journalists and I object to the language used in the electronic media,” he said.

The veteran journalist expressed his hurt at the way seniors are being treated by the juniors in the industry. “I worked during the government-run Doordarshan era, which was quite different from today’s 24 X 7 news-channel era. Both had their charm. Today, I have to take instructions from youngsters who are in their early 20s. They all bring their own perspectives. Veterans like me are reduced to being mere guides,” he added.