The Broken News stars Sonali Bendre as Amina Qureshi, Shriya Pilgaonkar as Radha Bhargava, and Jaideep Ahlawat as Dipankar Sanyal. The show is the Hindi adaptation of Mike Bartlett’s British show, Press. Written by Sambit Mishra, the Zee5 series is directed by Vijay Waikul. There is a total of 8 episodes of 35-40 minutes each. The rest of the cast includes Taaruk Raina, Indraneil Sengupta, Kiran Kumar and Sanjeeta Bhattacharya.
The synopsis reads, “Indian news channels Awaaz Bharati News and Josh 24/7 have opposing principles that lead to a fierce rivalry. The dynamic journalists attempt to balance their lives while facing an uncertain future.”
The Broken News Review Contains No Spoilers
In Zee5’s The Broken News, two rival news channels (Awaaz Bharati and Josh 24×7) and the journalists do their best to tell the news to the people while also hoping for a great TRP. However, only one of them aims to tell the truth. From telling the news to people to becoming the news themselves, the show takes a dramatic turn in the end.
Amina Qureshi and Radha Bhargava from Awaaz Bharati are not a fan of sensationalism. It is a bit surprising, considering most Hindi news channels have lost their credibility. The show shows how the channel that refuses to follow the trend suffers from budgets and TRPS. On the other hand, there’s Josh 24X7, run by Dipankar Sanyal. Sanyal represents almost every Hindi TV news anchor we see nowadays. He’s loud and unsympathetic; he treats the news as entertainment and doesn’t care much about telling the truth.
Throughout the show, the characters have to deal with a different kinds of news. Director Vinay Waikul succeeds in neatly showing the stark difference between how Awaaz Bharati covers the news and how Josh 24X7 handles it. In the show, Shriya Pilgaonkar’s character Radha says a line, “You can either have a personal life, or you can be a good journalist”. The sentence aptly describes Radha, who hardly has any personal life. Her world revolves around telling the truth.
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In today’s time, speaking the harsh and shocking truth doesn’t end up well for a person. The show starts with Radha telling us how she has paid the price for telling the truth. She gets tagged as a deshdrohi or traitor, the terms that are widely used by trolls on the internet today for any random reason. The narrative then shifts back to 3 months ago to tell us what exactly happened.
From the first episode, Zee5 show The Broken News captures your attention. Sambir and Vijay have treated the story with seriousness. There’s never a moment of the show coming across as preachy or overdramatic. The credit also goes to the actors for playing their parts so well.
Shriya Pilgaonkar as Radha Bhargava gives one of her best performances in the Zee5 show. Shriya displays Radha’s gusty and fearless nature with great conviction. Sonali Bendre, who we have missed for a long time on screen, is a delight to watch. Sonali’s character Amina is a soft-spoken news reporter, a rare sight in today’s time. Bendre is superb in the show, which should be an example of why she should continue working even more. Jaideep Ahlawat does a good job portraying a brash TV news anchor.
The Broken News Review: Final Thoughts
Overall, The Broken News on Zee5 is a must-watch. The show tells us a relevant and impactful story. It’s one of the rarest Hindi dramas that has rightly portrayed what goes in a newsroom. With two news channels, different types of journalists and two different treatments of the news, the makers have shown us the two different sides of the same coin (profession).
Watch the show on Zee5.
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