Ranjona Banerji: Do you/don’t you force fresh food on a child who only wants junk?

​By Ranjona Banerji​

I was moderator at a panel at a literary festival organised by the World Integrity Centre in Dehradun, this week. The topic – duh – was the media, interestingly titled “The unending chase: Tabloids to Tablets”. However, you put a bunch of journalists together and they add their individual touches to a brief and what you get is a whole new animal.

And yet, it is eventually, the same old animal: the state of the media today, the challenges we face, the influence of money and power, the conflict between reporter and newsroom, the changes from now and then, the influence of television and the advent and growing influence of the digital media.

All these, outside the fights between journalists on Twitter for positions taken and not taken, for stories done and not done, for praise given and withheld, are actually deadly serious and as we discovered during the course of our discussion, affect us all. The younger members of the panel, both of whom still have jobs in journalism, were most candid about the pressures they face. And not just from editors – because that is essential in any job or you do not perform – although that pressure can be difficult as well.

The demands made by newsrooms on reporters or from HQ newsrooms on local offices is now increasingly news that is determined by previous TRP experience or from research into digital hits. In simple terms, they want the stories that sell and the stories that are read; not necessarily the news that happens.

I will not pretend that some pressure of this sort was not applied on working journalists before. But even 10 or 15 years ago, an editor had some say in his or her newsroom. There was no such thing as “content” and marketing manipulation was kept at bay. That space for editorial freedom is shrinking, especially in larger media houses with various business interests.

The desire remains, we discovered, for more diverse news but as we all know, even the media works to an audience. And an audience has frivolous as well as serious demands. The problem is how far do you succumb to the lowest common denominator and how often do you force fresh food on a child who only wants junk?

Members from the audience asked some difficult questions about media ownership patterns and the reluctance from some media houses to take on the government and big business. This means that people are watching us and are not fooled by obfuscation and bombast.

Sadly for my friends in TV, most journalists and members of the audience agreed that our primetime “debates” were not to be taken seriously and were a form of entertainment.

My thanks to Harsh Dobhal, Arun Pratap Singh, Anupam Trivedi and Dilip Singh Rathod for being such a fine panel.

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Here is an interesting article from the Pew Research Centre on bots and links to articles on Twitter. It offers an insight into who runs our lives on the internet:

http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/04/09/bots-in-the-twittersphere/

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I would like to end with a statement from the National Alliance of Journalists:

“National Alliance of Journalists

The Chairperson of the National Alliance of Journalists Gender Council Ms. Sujata Madhok , the President of the National Alliance of Journalists (NAJ)and the Delhi Union of Journalists(DUJ) Mr. SK Pande and the Secretary General of the NAJ Mr. Koteswararao, have blasted the spate of attacks on women journalists this week . These range from a petrol bomb thrown at an editor’s home, death threats to a cartoonist for her critique of Hindutva, and lastly the patronising pat on the cheek of a woman journalist by the Governor of a state!

We condemn these incidents that reflect the special targeting of media women, be it through physical violence, vicious trolling on social media, filing of court cases or the subtle aggression displayed in direct interactions by politicians and others in power today, the joint statement added.

In a dangerous attack a petrol bomb was hurled at the home of Patricia Mukhim, veteran journalist and editor of the North East’s first English language daily the Shillong Times, on April 17, 2018. Mukhim was lucky to have escaped injury but it is evident that her writings have aroused the anger of unknown forces. Mukhim is a staunch feminist and social activist, known to have repeatedly taken up issues of gender justice, social justice and environmental justice. She has written against gun culture and extortion and violence by armed militant groups in the North East. She has opposed the large scale destruction of forest lands by coal and cement companies in Meghalaya and the rest of the region. She has also campaigned for a greater role for women in public life, including in village councils and other bodies that are entirely male dominated. We demand that the attack on Mukhim be immediately investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. We commend the Shillong Press Club for its initiative in this matter.

On Monday April 16, 2018 Hyderabad police filed an FIR against Swathi Vadlamudi, cartoonist for The Hindu, for her cartoon commenting on the Kathua and Unnao rapes. A Hindu nationalist group had filed a complaint about the cartoon that she had posted on her Facebook page. The cartoon went viral on social media, evoking both applause and angry comments. We consider the filing of the FIR against Vadlamudi an attack on the freedom of speech and expression. Women cartoonists are a rare, precious breed as they counter misogyny with humour; they should be promoted, not prosecuted, the NAJ-DUJ firmly believes.

The NAJ and DUJ also condemns the behavior of Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit at a Press Meet at the Raj Bhavan in Chennai on April 17. When Lakshmi Subramanian, a correspondent with The Week, asked Purohit some difficult questions, he chose not to reply but instead patted her on the cheek. They say that this gesture is patronizing, sexist and offensive to a woman professional. It could even be construed as sexual harassment. It joins the Press Club of Chennai and several women journos in demanding an unconditional apology from the Governor.

Sd/- Sd/- Sd/-

SK Pande M.Koteswararao Sujata Madhok

President – DUJ Secretary General -NAJ Chair Gender Equity Council of NAJ”

​Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are personal