‘Sensationalism is part of society,’ says Sonali Bendre

Sonali Bendre recently returned to the world of audio-visual content with her newly-released series The Broken News where she plays a righteous editor of a news channel.

While it’s a comeback vehicle for her after a period of struggle in terms of health, the series also marked her digital debut.

In a conversation, the actress spoke about her experience of coming back in front of camera, how sensationalism isn’t confined to news in the current age, her access point for consumption of information and her detoxification process from all information junk.

While TV anchors may rupture the eardrums by screaming at the top of their lungs, or flashy graphics may blind the viewer with horrendously loud colours, it’s not just the news where sensationalism finds its place.

As Sonali says, “Sensationalism is a part of society, it’s not just the news. Everything out there has a bit of sensationalism. There are so many voices that we end up noticing only the louder ones.” Sadly there’s not much one can do on an individual level in her opinion, “Hence, the voices just want to be louder and louder. We as a society collectively get drawn towards louder voices and that’s something really unfortunate.” But then how does she detoxify herself from the overwhelming flow of information that tends to turn toxic? The answer is simple, Sonali dissociates and switches off. — IANS