Ranjona Banerji: Lack of judgement or attempt to misinform?

By Ranjona Banerji​

I have no beef with sections of the media looking to be all gossipy and yellow. I may not subscribe to or watch this sort of stuff but people like it. Some in fact are addicted to headlines like “Woman gives birth to two-headed goat” and this was long before the advent of the internet, clickbait headlines and the Facebook and Google “duopoly” over who reads what.

However, the enormous dip in the collective judgment calls in the Indian media is now getting dangerous. Almost every responsible media outlet, print, web and TV, for instance fell for the release of a so-called “sex” CDs apparently involving Hardik Patel, Patidaar leader and challenger to the BJP in Gujarat. The CDs were a clear political ploy to discredit Patel and in fact showed nothing. The questions that could have been asked included why release the CD now, is sex illegal in India and why should Patel being in a room with a woman be seen as reprehensible, who shot the CD, why did the hotel release the footage. Instead, we had idiotic moral posturing apart from salacious wondering.

Two releases from the BJP’s IT cell can be added to examples of the media’s lack of judgment. A clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi started doing the rounds on social media where he promises a machine that is truly idiotic: you put in a potato from one side and get gold from the other. Several stories appeared on how much Twitter laughed at Gandhi. Then it turned out that Gandhi was only quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It would have taken any internet friendly journalist to do a little research on the clip to get to the truth. It would have taken most editors only five​ minutes of brain application to smell a trap.

The other release was a series of photographs on social media, put out by Amit Malviya, the BJP IT cell head, of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru kissing and hugging women. Apparently, these photographs indicated to the BJP that Nehru and Hardik Patel shared the same “DNA” – a propensity for sex, on assumes. Of course, most of the women in those photographs were of Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Nehru’s sister. How long should it take for a responsible newspaper editor to call out such character assassination? Don’t hold your breath as far as the bulk of the Indian media is concerned.

But the capitulation of the media seems practically absolute. The threats made to the film Padmavati, by various “Rajput” groups have not led to our brave news anchors holding up the ruling BJP to scrutiny. Instead, we have a series of pointless ill-informed discussions on history versus fact. Law and order never bothers us as much as “hurt sentiments”.

So also with the removal of two films from the Indian Panorama of the International Film Festival at Goa. Several members of the jury which selected Nude and S Durga have resigned in protest. This warrants further discussion because it hits straight at freedom of expression. Instead, we have a prominent patriotic TV anchor asking on Twitter why filmmakers always prefixed names like “Durga” with adjectives like “sexy” but not names like Mary or that is, why only Hindu names and not Muslim and Christian names. This is a clear call to create social disharmony – apart from being tremendously ignorant about ethnic and racial stereotyping in Indian cinema. However, the views of this TV anchor are now seen as unquestionable in newsrooms.

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Meanwhile, in ironies of ironies, “National Press Day” was “celebrated” by the Central government. The prime minister informed us that his government is committed to “upholding freedom of the press and expression in all forms”. Only a bootlicking media would believe this and luckily The Telegraph, Calcutta has called Modi out.

In other news, let us salute once again the Rajasthan Patrika for its partial blank front page, in protest against the Rajasthan government’s gag order on investigating or reporting on wrongdoings by government officials. A rare instance of media courage in a sea of sycophants.