News Broadcasting
Sanjay Gupta has our full and unequivocal support: CNN
MUMBAI: Professionalism, humanity and need of the hour can make a human being go beyond the line. But on the other hand, a fraction of inconsistency may dilute the bravery and turn it into a debate. In a recent such occurrence CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta assisted surgeons by performing craniotomy on a young victim at Bir Hospital while reporting from Nepal which was stuck by earthquake.
The natural calamity took many lives. Amidst that, as per Dr Gupta, there was a small kid who needed immediate medical attention and that’s when he volunteered and effectively saved her life.
Post this, CNN went on to showing images of an eight year old girl in Nepal claiming her to be the one medically operated by Dr Gupta. But later on, a flurry of reports came in that questioned the claims of CNN. Reports state that the girl shown in the clip, underwent no surgery, which thus questions the integrity of CNN’s reporting.
Explaining the scenario Dr Gupta asserted, “We want to get these things 100 per cent right. It’s important, obviously, to the viewers. It’s important to the families, you know, who are there undergoing this, suffering through the aftermath of the earthquake.”
CNN, later released an official statement saying, “Journalism is not brain surgery, but brain surgery is brain surgery. We are proud that Sanjay is one of the few reporters in Nepal to cover the earthquake, and while there, he was asked to help save a young victim’s life. As we reported, he assisted the surgeons at Bir Hospital by performing a craniotomy on a young victim. While some reporting suggests that the girl in the clip wasn’t operated, we at the time of our reporting believed her to be. We will try to verify that. Regardless, Sanjay spent a week in Nepal, helped save a young life in the operating room, and we couldn’t be more proud of him. He has our full and unequivocal support.”
Gupta is a practicing neurosurgeon as well as a medical correspondent.
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI: Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
